FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61  
62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   >>   >|  
panion at the breakfast-table, as possessed of "all the cardinal virtues, and counting for nothing." I can do little more than offer my humble testimony to the truthfulness of Miss Halcombe's sketch of the old lady's character. Mrs. Vesey looked the personification of human composure and female amiability. A calm enjoyment of a calm existence beamed in drowsy smiles on her plump, placid face. Some of us rush through life, and some of us saunter through life. Mrs. Vesey SAT through life. Sat in the house, early and late; sat in the garden; sat in unexpected window-seats in passages; sat (on a camp-stool) when her friends tried to take her out walking; sat before she looked at anything, before she talked of anything, before she answered Yes, or No, to the commonest question--always with the same serene smile on her lips, the same vacantly-attentive turn of the head, the same snugly-comfortable position of her hands and arms, under every possible change of domestic circumstances. A mild, a compliant, an unutterably tranquil and harmless old lady, who never by any chance suggested the idea that she had been actually alive since the hour of her birth. Nature has so much to do in this world, and is engaged in generating such a vast variety of co-existent productions, that she must surely be now and then too flurried and confused to distinguish between the different processes that she is carrying on at the same time. Starting from this point of view, it will always remain my private persuasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs. Vesey was born, and that the good lady suffered the consequences of a vegetable preoccupation in the mind of the Mother of us all. "Now, Mrs. Vesey," said Miss Halcombe, looking brighter, sharper, and readier than ever, by contrast with the undemonstrative old lady at her side, "what will you have? A cutlet?" Mrs. Vesey crossed her dimpled hands on the edge of the table, smiled placidly, and said, "Yes, dear." "What is that opposite Mr. Hartright? Boiled chicken, is it not? I thought you liked boiled chicken better than cutlet, Mrs. Vesey?" Mrs. Vesey took her dimpled hands off the edge of the table and crossed them on her lap instead; nodded contemplatively at the boiled chicken, and said, "Yes, dear." "Well, but which will you have, to-day? Shall Mr. Hartright give you some chicken? or shall I give you some cutlet?" Mrs. Vesey put one of her dimpled hands back agai
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61  
62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

chicken

 

cutlet

 

dimpled

 
Nature
 

Hartright

 

crossed

 

Halcombe

 

looked

 

boiled

 
persuasion

making

 

private

 

remain

 
absorbed
 

cabbages

 

carrying

 

engaged

 

existent

 

productions

 

surely


generating

 

flurried

 
confused
 

processes

 

variety

 

Starting

 

distinguish

 
nodded
 

thought

 
contemplatively

Boiled
 

Mother

 
brighter
 

preoccupation

 
suffered
 

consequences

 

vegetable

 

sharper

 

readier

 

placidly


opposite

 

smiled

 

contrast

 

undemonstrative

 

saunter

 

placid

 

existence

 

beamed

 
drowsy
 

smiles