The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tenterhooks, by Ada Leverson

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Title: Tenterhooks

Author: Ada Leverson

Release Date: November 8, 2003 [eBook #10021]

Language: English

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Tenterhooks

[Book 2 of The Little Ottleys]

by Ada Leverson

1912

TO ROBERT ROSS

CHAPTER I

A Verbal Invitation

Because Edith had not been feeling very well, that seemed no reason why
she should be the centre of interest; and Bruce, with that jealousy of
the privileges of the invalid and in that curious spirit of rivalry
which his wife had so often observed, had started, with enterprise, an
indisposition of his own, as if to divert public attention. While he
was at Carlsbad he heard the news. Then he received a letter from
Edith, speaking with deference and solicitude of Bruce's rheumatism,
entreating him to do the cure thoroughly, and suggesting that they
should call the little girl Matilda, after a rich and sainted--though
still living--aunt of Edith's. It might be an advantage to the child's
future (in every sense) to have a godmother so wealthy and so
religious. It appeared from the detailed description that the new
daughter had, as a matter of course (and at two days old), long golden
hair, far below her waist, sweeping lashes and pencilled brows, a
rosebud mouth, an intellectual forehead, chiselled features and a tall,
elegant figure. She was a magnificent, regal-looking creature and was a
superb beauty of the classic type, and yet with it she was dainty and
winsome. She had great talent for music. This, it appeared, was shown
by the breadth between the eyes and the timbre of her voice.

Overwhelmed with joy at the advent of such a paragon, and horrified at
Edith's choice of a name, Bruce had replied at once by wire,
impulsively:

_'Certainly not Matilda I would rather she were called Aspasia.'_

Edith read this expression of feeling on a colourless telegraph form,
and as she was, at Knightsbridge, unable to hear the ironical tone of
the message she took