Читать книгу The Missing Bride - Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth - Страница 12

Several miles from the manor of Luckenough, upon a hill not far from the seacoast, stood the cottage of the Old Fields.

The property was an appendage to the Manor of Luckenoug—, and was at this time occupied by a poor relation of Commodore Waugh, his niece, Mary L'Oiseau, the widow of a Frenchman. Mrs. L'Oiseau had but one child, a little girl, Jacquelina, now about eight or nine years of age.

Commodore Waugh had given them the cottage to live in, permission to make a living, if they could, out of the poor land attached to it. This was all the help he had afforded his poor niece, and all, as she said, that she could reasonably expect from one who had so many dependents. For several years past the little property had afforded her a bare subsistence.

And now this year the long drought had parched up her garden and corn-field, and her cows had failed in their yield of milk for the want of grass.

It was upon a dry and burning day, near the last of August, that Mary L'Oiseau and her daughter sat down to their frugal breakfast. And such a frugal breakfast! The cheapest tea, with brown sugar, and a corn cake baked upon the griddle, and a little butter—that was all! It was spread upon a plain pine table without a tablecloth.

The furniture of the room was in keeping—a sanded floor, a chest of drawers, with a small looking-glass, ornamented by a sprig of asparagus, a dresser of rough pine shelves on the right of the fireplace, and a cupboard on the left, a half-dozen chip-bottomed chairs, a spinning-wheel, and a reel and jack, completed the appointments.

Mrs. L'Oiseau was devouring the contents of a letter, which ran thus:

"MARY, MY DEAR! I feel as if I had somewhat neglected you, but, the truth is, my arm is not long enough to stretch from Luckenough to Old Fields. That being the case, and myself and Old Hen being rather lonesome since Edith's ungrateful desertion, we beg you to take little Jacko, and come live with us as long as we may live—and of what may come after that we will talk at some time. If you will be ready I will send the carriage for you on Saturday.