Reading.
Get started

Library / Literature & Fiction

Stories by English Authors: Germany (Selected by Scribners)

by Beatrice, 1864-1936 [Contributor] Harraden

Pages
about 28
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
30 min at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 17 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

It is a Christmas morning in Surrey--cold, still and gray, with a frail glimmer of sunshine coming through the bare trees to melt the hoar-frost on the lawn. The postman has just gone out, swinging the gate behind him. A fire burns brightly in the breakfast-room; and there is silence about the house, for the children have gone off to climb Box Hill before being marched to church.

The small and gentle lady who presides over the household walks sedately in, and lifts the solitary letter that is lying on her plate. About three seconds suffice to let her run through its contents, and then she suddenly cries:

“I knew it! I said it! I told you two months ago she was only flirting with him; and now she has rejected him. And oh! I am so glad of it! The poor boy!”

The other person in the room, who had been meekly waiting for his breakfast for half an hour, ventures to point out that there is nothing to rejoice over in the fact of a young man having been rejected by a young woman.

“If it were final, yes! If these two young folks were not certain to go and marry somebody else, you might congratulate them both. But you know they will. The poor boy will go courting again in three months’ time, and be vastly pleased with his condition.”

“Oh, never, never!” she says. “He has had such a lesson! You know I warned him. I knew she was only flirting with him. Poor Charlie! Now I hope he will get on with his profession, and leave such things out of his head. And as for that creature--”

“I will do you the justice to say,” observes her husband, who is still regarding the table with a longing eye, “that you did oppose this match, because you hadn’t the making of it. If you had brought these two together they would have been married ere this.

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a similar open source. Copyright differs between countries. Rights holder? See our takedown process.