Rhoda Fleming -- Volume 1

r

iss all expectations and dreams of impossible sums from her mind, and simply to endeavour to please her uncle, who had a right to his own, and a right to do what he liked with his own, though it were forty, fifty times as much as he possessed-and what that might amount to no one knew. In fact, as is the way with many experienced persons, in his attempt to give adv

of her. If I could part with you, my lass

lled by our quiet l

a wife. I said so when you was girls. And if, you've been dull, my dear, what's the good o' society? Tea-cakes mayn't seem to cost money, nor a glass o' grog to neighbours; but once open the door to that sort o' thing and your reckoning

and the seclusion of his daughters from the society of girls of their age and condition;

decorations she possessed wherewith to enter London, and be worthy of her

satisfied. They vary so, the teasin' creatures! But one and all, whether they likes it or not, owns a woman's the better for bein' dressed in the fashion. What do grieve me to my insidest heart, it is your bonnet. What a bonnet that w

ust do,"

rvant-gal a-goin' out for an airin'; a

nd then hummed a little tune, and said firmly-"

hile London, my dear, its pavement and gutter, and omnibus traffic; and if you're not in the fashion, the little wicked boys of the streets themselves 'll let you know it; they've got such eyes for fashions, they have. And I don't want

time, "It would please me if peo

n who sees anything should not see like a mirror, and a girl's instinct whispers to her, that

ty, and whose chin seemed shaped to a cup. Rhoda's outlines were harder. There was a suspicion of a heavenward turn to her nose, and of squareness to her chin. Her face, when studied, inspired in its owner's mind a doubt of her being even nice to the eye, though she knew that in exercise, and when smitten by a blush, brightness and colour aided her claims. She knew also that her head was easily poi

heard the mighty thunder of the city, crashing, tumults of disordered harmonies, and the splendour of the lamp-lighted c

e or two instances, the names of the same streets, and professed a similar anxiety as regarded driving her to the station and catching the train. "That's a thing which makes a man feel his strength's not

t called forth general laughter, and increased

, on the contrary, scarcely looked at her at all. He threw verbal turnips, oats, oxen, poultry, and every possible melancholy matter-of-fact thing, about the

e he knows of the constancy in the nature of

to him to walk about in the March sunshine, and see the grounds and the wild flowers, which never ga

nse of that kind. 'Look,' says I, 'at a violet.' 'Look,' says she, 'at a rose.' Well, what can ye say after that? She swears

ative, when called on for it by a look

ight-she was

her own bonnets, and they're as good as milliners', and that's a proud matter to say of your own niece. And to buy dresses for herself, I suppose, she's sat down and she made dresses for fine ladies. I've found her at it. Save the money for the work, says I. What does she reply- sh

"I give in at

uch of women-i

y I don't think

ne woman, now, Mr.

rather thi

y, may

s sa

xactly see that

tear the other,"

ogul in your reasoning

e as your morals

urch, but Robert could not

hoped likewise that

thony, "do you see

out' any number of women, if I was idle. But the woman you mean to make your

re of her, d

my luck; th

she won't

wait f

ets married to

ouldn't cast eye on a

ust suppose, for the sake of supposing-supposing she was a fool, and gone and got

. So, she jilts me, and I get a pistol, or I get a neat bit of rope, or I take a clean header with a cannon-ball at my heels,

Rhoda to jump over a

at the whol

ked, with bet

bert Armstro

ine,

are a snap o' the f

us must care

business. If he'd seen you boil potatoes, make dumplings, beds, tea, all that,

and suffering internal discontent. "Or else, 'You are the cook,'" she muttered, and shut, with the word, steel bars across her

her face, and wondered what thoughts could be rising within her, unaware that girls catch certain meanings late, and suffer a fiery torture when these meanings are clear to them. Rhoda called up the pride of her womanhood that she might despise the man who had dared to distrust her. She kept her poppy colour throughout the day, so sensitive was this pride. But most she was angered, after reflection, by the doubts which Robert