Hazel Combe; Or, the Golden Rule, by the Author of 'Recommended to Mercy' Or, the Golden Rule, by the Author of 'Recommended to Mercy'. - Softcover

Reseña del editor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1863. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X. THE COLONEL AND THE COUNTY. "How fortunate it is that Colonel Fendall left India in time for our ball! I declare he will be quite an ornament, and we never have too many men at any time." The utterer of this piece of self-congratulation was Mrs. Western, who now, with her husband and children, enjoyed the rather empty honour of occupying Westerham Abbey. It was an imposing and a lordly abode, as I have before hinted, but as the earl, Sir Matthew's brotherin-law, considered a residence in Paris as more conducive to the keeping up in their rightful order of his hereditary stock of good spirits, he generously permitted his needy younger brother to endure on a limited income the unbearable dullness, as he considered it, of the paternal hall, and allowed him the doubtful privilege of keeping in order the estate which his lordship's natural indolence led him so entirely to neglect. Mrs. Western was a woman who had once been handsome, and who, whilst she retained the memory of the fact, could with difficulty persuade herself to remember that she had seen her five-and-fortieth autumn. Nor could she be induced to believe, notwithstanding the living presence of daughters past their twentieth year, that Old Time would ever venture to take liberties with one who presented so bold a front to the enemy. At the moment when this spirited lady was congratulating herself and society on the expected presence at her coming entertainment of Sir Matthew's handsome son, her hands, as well as her woman's heart and soul, were occupied in preparations for that important event. She was one of those female heads of families who always deem it their duty to "look" to everything themselves; so, at the present juncture, having taken the work out of the hands of the much-affr...