Brownlows
Реклама. ООО «ЛитРес», ИНН: 7719571260.
Оглавление
Маргарет Олифант. Brownlows
CHAPTER I. MR. BROWNLOW’S MONEY
CHAPTER II. SARA
CHAPTER III. A SUDDEN ALARM
CHAPTER IV. A LITTLE DINNER
CHAPTER V. SARA’S SPECULATIONS
CHAPTER VI. AN ADVENTURE
CHAPTER VII. THE FATHER’S DAY AT THE OFFICE
CHAPTER VIII. YOUNG POWYS
CHAPTER IX. NEW NEIGHBORS
CHAPTER X. AT THE GATE
CHAPTER XI. THE YOUNG PEOPLE
CHAPTER XII. NEWS OF FRIENDS
CHAPTER XIII. A CRISIS
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV. LUNCHEON
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII. A CATASTROPHE
CHAPTER XVIII. TREATING HIS OWN CASE
CHAPTER XIX. PHŒBE THOMSON
CHAPTER XX. POWYS’S BITS OF PAPER
CHAPTER XXI. HOW A MAN CAN DO WHAT HE LIKES WITH HIS OWN
CHAPTER XXII. THE DOWNFALL OF PHILOSOPHY
CHAPTER XXIII. ALL FOR LOVE
CHAPTER XXIV. A NEW CONSPIRATOR
CHAPTER XXV. HOW SARA REGARDED THE MOTE IN HER BROTHER’S EYE
CHAPTER XXVI. A DOUBLE HUMILIATION
CHAPTER XXVII. SARA’S OWN AFFAIRS
CHAPTER XXVIII. DESPAIR
CHAPTER XXIX. NEWS
CHAPTER XXX. WHAT FOLLOWED
CHAPTER XXXI. SUSPICION
CHAPTER XXXII. THE REAL TRAITOR
CHAPTER XXXIII. ONLY MR. BROWNLOW’S CLERK
CHAPTER XXXIV. AN IMPOSTOR
CHAPTER XXXV. AN UNLOOKED-FOR VISITOR
CHAPTER XXXVI. MOMENTARY MADNESS
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE MORNING LIGHT
CHAPTER XXXVIII. MOTHER AND LOVER
CHAPTER XXXIX. COMPOUND INTEREST
CHAPTER XL. JACK’S LAST TRIAL
CHAPTER XLI. SIR CHARLES MOTHERWELL
CHAPTER XLII. A GUARDIAN
CHAPTER XLIII. THE LIGHT OF COMMON DAY
CHAPTER XLIV. PAMELA’S MIND
CHAPTER XLV. CONCLUSION
Отрывок из книги
Mr. Brownlow had one son and one daughter—the boy, a very good natured, easy-minded, honest sort of young fellow, approaching twenty-one, and not made much account of either at home or abroad. The daughter was Sara. For people who know her, or indeed who are at all acquainted with society in Dartfordshire, it is unnecessary to say more; but perhaps the general public may prefer a clearer description. She was the queen of John Brownlow’s house, and the apple of his eye. At the period of which we speak she was between nineteen and twenty, just emerging from what had always been considered a delicate girlhood, into the full early bloom of woman. She had too much character, too much nonsense, too many wiles, and too much simplicity in her, to be, strictly speaking, beautiful; and she was not good enough or gentle enough to be lovely. And neither was she beloved by all, as a heroine ought to be. There were some people who did not like her, as well as some who did, and there were a great many who fluctuated between love and dislike, and were sometimes fond of her, and sometimes affronted with her; which, indeed, was a very common state of mind with herself. Sara was so much a girl of her age that she had even the hair of the period, as the spring flowers have the colors of spring. It was light-brown, with a golden tint, and abundant as locks of that color generally are; but it can not be denied that it was darker than the fashionable shade, and that Sara was not above being annoyed by this fact, nor even above a vague and shadowy idea of doing something to bring it to the correct tint; which may rank as one of the constantly recurring proofs that young women are in fact the least vain portion of the creation, and have less faith in the efficacy of their natural charms than any other section of the race. She had a little rosebud mouth, dewy and pearly, and full eyes, which were blue, or gray, or hazel, according as you looked at them, and according to the sentiment they might happen to express. She was very tall, very slight and flexible, and wavy like a tall lily, with the slightest variable stoop in her pretty shoulders, for which her life had been rendered miserable by many well-meaning persons, but which in reality was one of her charms. To say that she stooped is an ugly expression, and there was nothing ugly about Sara. It was rather that by times her head drooped a little, like the aforesaid lily swayed by the softest of visionary breezes. This, however, was the only thing lily-like or angelic about her. She was not a model of any thing, nor noted for any special virtues. She was Sara. That was about all that could be said for her; and it is to be hoped that she may be able to evidence what little bits of good there were in her during the course of this history, for herself.
“Papa,” she said, as they sat together at the breakfast-table, “I will call for you this afternoon, and bring you home. I have something to do in Masterton.”
.....
“Ah!” said the old woman with a cry; “but a garden that you once tripped about, and once saw your children tripping about, and now you have to hobble through it all alone. Oh child, child! and never a sound in it, but all the voices gone and all the steps that you would give the world to hear!”
Sara roused herself up out of her meditation, and gave a startled astonished look into the corner where the cross old grandmother was sobbing in the darkness. The child stumbled to her feet, startled and frightened and ashamed of what she had done, and went and threw herself upon the old woman’s neck. And poor old Mrs. Fennell sobbed and pushed her granddaughter away, and then hugged and kissed her, and stroked her pretty hair and the feather in her hat and her soft velvet and fur. The thoughtless girl had given her a stab, and yet it was such a stab as opens while it wounds. She sobbed, but a touch of sweetness came along with the pain, and for the moment she loved again, and grew human and motherlike, warming out of the chills of her hard old age.
.....