FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91  
92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   >>   >|  
companied her on her charitable missions, and took--so far as a stranger might,--the place of Catherine in her life. Catherine met Jenny upon the doorstep of her parents' house on the evening of her arrival, and hastened to ask her mother who the slim girl, with the tall figure, narrow shoulders, fluffy brown hair, and large oriental eyes was. "My paid daughter," said Mrs. Ardagh, almost bitterly. "But she can't fill the place of my lost Catherine." Nevertheless, Catherine discovered that her mother was truly attached to Jenny. "I took her partly because she is easily led," she said, "easily influenced and so very pretty and poor. I want to save her for God, and when I met her there was one who wished to lead her to the devil. She won't see him now. She won't hear his name." Then she dropped the subject. Catherine was alternately questioned by her father and by her mother as to the influence of Mark. But something within her prevented her from telling them of the conversation in the Pavilion, when the cries of the toy city died down into the night. Mrs. Ardagh, now sinking in the confusion of a rather dreary middle age, complicated by a natural melancholy, and by incessant confession to a ritualistic clergyman seductive in receptivity, was relieved to think that Mark was harmless. Art for Art's sake--the motto of her husband--had apparently little meaning for Mark. As Mrs. Ardagh thought it the devil's motto she was glad of this and said so to Catherine. Mr. Ardagh, on the other hand, was vexed to find Mark apparently so frivolous; and he also expressed his feelings to Catherine, who became slightly confused. "I should like to see your husband doing something," he said. "You have much of me in you, Kit, despite your poor dear mother's extravagant attempts to limit your reading to Frances Ridley Havergal. Why didn't you marry an artist, eh? A painter or an author, somebody who can give us more beauty than we have already, or more truth? You're too good for Frances Ridley Havergal. Leave her to your mother and that girl, Jenny, who is like wax in your mother's hands and the hands of the Rev. Father Grimshaw. Piff!" Catherine said nothing, but she sought an opportunity of seeing something of Jenny. She found it, just before the day on which she and Mark were to leave London for their country house. Jenny had come as usual one morning, to read aloud to Mrs. Ardagh. They were just then deep in the "Memoirs"
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91  
92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Catherine

 

mother

 

Ardagh

 
easily
 
Frances
 

apparently

 

husband

 

Havergal

 
Ridley
 

slightly


confused
 

morning

 

country

 

expressed

 

meaning

 

thought

 

Memoirs

 

frivolous

 
extravagant
 

feelings


Grimshaw

 

Father

 

author

 

beauty

 

painter

 

reading

 

London

 

sought

 

opportunity

 

artist


attempts

 

bitterly

 
daughter
 

oriental

 

Nevertheless

 

influenced

 

pretty

 
discovered
 
attached
 

partly


doorstep

 
parents
 

stranger

 

companied

 
charitable
 
missions
 

evening

 

arrival

 

figure

 

narrow