The Project Gutenberg eBook, Dangerous Ages, by Rose Macaulay

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Title: Dangerous Ages

Author: Rose Macaulay

Release Date: October 4, 2005 [eBook #16799]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANGEROUS AGES***

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DANGEROUS AGES

by

ROSE MACAULAY

Author of "Potterism"

Boni and Liveright
Publishers New York

1921

TO MY MOTHER
DRIVING GAILY THROUGH THE
ADVENTUROUS MIDDLE YEARS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. NEVILLE'S BIRTHDAY
II. MRS. HILARY'S BIRTHDAY
III. FAMILY LIFE
IV. ROOTS
V. SEAWEED
VI. JIM
VII. GERDA
VIII. NAN
IX. THE PACE
X. PRINCIPLES
XI. THAT WHICH REMAINS
XII. THE MOTHER
XIII. THE DAUGHTER
XIV. YOUTH TO YOUTH
XV. THE DREAM
XVI. TIME
XVII. THE KEY

'As to that,' said Mr. Cradock, 'we may say that all ages are dangerous
to all people, in this dangerous life we live.'

'Reflecting how, at the best, human life on this minute and perishing
planet is a mere episode, and as brief as a dream....'

_Trivia_: Logan Pearsall Smith.

CHAPTER I

NEVILLE'S BIRTHDAY

1

Neville, at five o'clock (Nature's time, not man's) on the morning of her
birthday, woke from the dream-broken sleep of summer dawns, hot with the
burden of two sheets and a blanket, roused by the multitudinous silver
calling of a world full of birds. They chattered and bickered about the
creepered house, shrill and sweet, like a hundred brooks running together
down steep rocky places after snow. And, not like brooks, and strangely
unlike birds, like, in fact, nothing in the world except a cuckoo clock,
a cuckoo shouted foolishly in the lowest boughs of the great elm across
the silver lawn.

Neville turned on her face, cupped her small, pale, tanned face in her
sunburnt hands, and looked out with sleepy violet eyes. The sharp joy of
the young day struck into her as she breathed it through the wide window.
She shivered ecstatically as it blew coldly onto her bare throat and
chest, and forgot