FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259   260   261   262  
263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   >>   >|  
I would ask it." "Then, Eleanor, it is my duty to tell you," and now she spoke with a tremendous gravity, "that the archdeacon thinks that such a correspondence is disgraceful, and that he cannot allow it to go on in his house." Eleanor's eyes flashed fire as she answered her sister, jumping up from her seat as she did so. "You may tell the archdeacon that wherever I am I shall receive what letters I please and from whom I please. And as for the word 'disgraceful,' if Dr. Grantly has used it of me, he has been unmanly and inhospitable," and she walked off to the door. "When Papa comes from the dining-room I will thank you to ask him to step up to my bedroom. I will show him Mr. Slope's letter, but I will show it to no one else." And so saying, she retreated to her baby. She had no conception of the crime with which she was charged. The idea that she could be thought by her friends to regard Mr. Slope as a lover had never flashed upon her. She conceived that they were all prejudiced and illiberal in their persecution of him, and therefore she would not join in the persecution, even though she greatly disliked the man. Eleanor was very angry as she seated herself in a low chair by her open window at the foot of her child's bed. "To dare to say I have disgraced myself," she repeated to herself more than once. "How Papa can put up with that man's arrogance! I will certainly not sit down to dinner in his house again unless he begs my pardon for that word." And then a thought struck her that Mr. Arabin might perchance hear of her "disgraceful" correspondence with Mr. Slope, and she turned crimson with pure vexation. Oh, if she had known the truth! If she could have conceived that Mr. Arabin had been informed as a fact that she was going to marry Mr. Slope! She had not been long in her room before her father joined her. As he left the drawing-room Mrs. Grantly took her husband into the recess of the window and told him how signally she had failed. "I will speak to her myself before I go to bed," said the archdeacon. "Pray do no such thing," said she; "you can do no good and will only make an unseemly quarrel in the house. You have no idea how headstrong she can be." The archdeacon declared that as to that he was quite indifferent. He knew his duty and would do it. Mr. Harding was weak in the extreme in such matters. He would not have it hereafter on his conscience that he had not done all that in him lay to
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259   260   261   262  
263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

archdeacon

 

Eleanor

 

disgraceful

 

Grantly

 

persecution

 

window

 
Arabin
 
thought
 

conceived

 

correspondence


flashed

 

matters

 

struck

 

pardon

 

turned

 

crimson

 

perchance

 

failed

 

extreme

 
conscience

repeated

 

arrogance

 

dinner

 

vexation

 

recess

 

unseemly

 

joined

 

father

 
headstrong
 

quarrel


drawing

 

disgraced

 

signally

 

Harding

 

indifferent

 
declared
 

informed

 

husband

 

regard

 

unmanly


receive

 
letters
 

inhospitable

 

walked

 

bedroom

 

dining

 
thinks
 

gravity

 

tremendous

 
jumping