The Third Miss Symons

in the country, with a green verandah and French windows. She was a kind, nice old lady, not well off, a humble great-aunt to the whole village. Children contin

le scheme of pleasure for each day, and so many people came and went

ow that the first shock was over, she had become sensitive on the subject, and did not wish to spe

n left motherless, the eldest of a large family, when she was nineteen or twenty. It was evidently her duty to devote herself to the y

bracing herself to say some

hough when one has hoped-still life can be very happy, very peaceful, without. Why,

ents for the poor? It made her feel sick and dismal to think of it. Besides, their circumstances were not similar. Her aunt, fortified by the spirit of self-sacrifice, had resigned what she loved, but she had the reward of being the most necessary member of her circle. Henrietta had h

should not continue to be attracted. As he had been in love with marrying rather than with her, so she had been in love with being loved rather than with him. She would have accepted almost any

rticularly as her complexion went off early, and without her complexion she had nothing to fall back on. So Mrs. Symons gave herself up to the luxury of bad health, and said she could not stand late hours. When Henrietta d

s daughters' husbands had confirmed his opinion in the most satisfactory way by marrying them, whereas his good opinion of Henrietta, far from being confirmed, had been rather weakened. Minna and Louie's virtues, husbands, and houses were

veral hours in the day however, and during his absence Henrietta did drive out with her mother, read to her, and sit with her, and as they were so much together and shared the small events of the country town, they were to a certain extent drawn together. But Mrs. Symons always treated Henrietta de haut en bas, and snubbed her when she thought necessary, as if she had been a child of ten, so that Henrietta was constrained and a little timid with her. There was the suggestion of a feeling that Mrs. Symons was to b

h for the truth, that the years between eighteen and thirty were her marrying years, which, slowly as they passed from the point of view of her ha

ing for parties, because it had only lasted four or five years. It had done what it was intended to do, it had settled them very comfortably with husbands. But with Henrietta, the condition which was meant to be temporary, seemed spreading itself out to be permanent, and with the parties taken away, she was hard put to it to fill up her days. She longed in

embered that Miss Arundel and Mrs. Marston had occasionally had favourite old pupils to stay with them. She imagined how one letter might lead to another, and how at last Miss Arundel might invite her to stay too

ns was. So many girls had passed through her hands, and she lived in the present rather than the past. A teacher was ill, she was very

hree of them, one was Minnie, I believe, and I think Etta had a bad headache at the picnic. It

very marked eyebrows." And she wrote back a postcard, "Tr.

he Italian, nor the translation, nor the notes, they found continual excuses for not reading, till Carrie boldly suggested "I Promessi Sposi," which went much better. They did not read for long, however, for Car

n so eager at school, should not care to work by herself at home. But when there are no competitors and no Miss Arundel, work loses much of its zest for ev

ring surroundings, and contact with life, or mere accumulation of years, take something away. Or perhaps it simply is that when they are grown up they are judged by a more severe standard. M

udy. "Reading Italian, my dear?" her mother would say. "Oh, can't you find anything better to do than that? Surely there must be some m

lse. So she spent most of the long leisure hours sitting by the window and thinking. She often said to herself the v

ugh and sport an

solitary

ce in silenc

reaking for a

omfort to her of those dreary years. The writer must have been through it all, she thought; she knows what it is. Not to be alone,

t a little-at any rate it was a distraction to think of the rhymes. She would have shown them to Carrie, if

re op'ed he

t flowers

o taste of

e to sit

to me of a las

ceases, it fad

a man 'tis a f

woman etern

able of writing that was incapable of

nd then she wanted him so intensely that she had to forget him. The aspect of certain days would be connected with some peculiarly mournful moments. She wondered which was the most depressing, t

o her. She would have been forced to make an effort; not to brood and concentrate herself on her misery. But Mr. Symons, on the con

ty. At the same time her lot did not seem so bitter as it had done; she had become used to it. Though she herself hardly realized it, and certainly could not have said when the change had come, she was not now particularly unhappy. It was an alleviation that her mother was more of an invalid, so that some