Winslow, a spinster of a certain age, who had lived with her uncle,
and now proposed to remove to Bath. Mr. Winslow had, it appeared,
lost his only son as a schoolboy, and his daughters, like their
mother, had been consumptive. He had always been resolved that the
estate should continue in the family; but reluctance to see any one
take his son's place had withheld him from making any advances to my
father; and for several years past he had been in broken health with
failing faculties.
Of course there was much elation. Griff described as charming the
place, perched on the southern slope of a wooded hill, with a broad
fertile valley lying spread out before it, and the woods behind
affording every promise of sport. The house, my father said, was
good, odd and irregular, built at different times, but quite
habitable, and with plenty of furniture, though he opined that mamma
would think it needed modernising, to which she replied that our
present chattels would make a great difference; whereat my father,
looking at the effects of more than twenty years of London blacks,
gave a little whistle, for she was always the economical one of the
pair.
Emily, with glowing cheeks and eager eyes, entreated to know whether
it was Gothic, and had a cloister! Papa nipped her hopes of a
cloister, but there were Gothic windows and doorway, and a bit of
ruin in the garden, a fragment of the old chapel.
Pages:
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