Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Light O' the Morning: The Story of an Irish Girl by L. T. Meade (e book free reading TXT) 📖
- Author: L. T. Meade
Book online «Light O' the Morning: The Story of an Irish Girl by L. T. Meade (e book free reading TXT) 📖». Author L. T. Meade
Meanwhile Stephanotie wandered about the house, thinking over and over of the happy moment when she would appear at The Laurels. She thought it best to put on her rose-colored dress in time for early dinner. It fitted her well, but was scarcely the best accompaniment to her fiery-red hair.
“Oh, lor', miss!” said Maria, the servant, when she first caught sight of Stephanotie.
“You may well say, 'Oh, lor'!' Maria,” replied Stephanotie, “although it is not a very pretty expression. But have a bon-bon; I don't mean to be cross.”
She whirled across the room, snatched hold of one of her boxes of bon-bons, and presented it to Maria. Maria was not averse to a chocolate peppermint, and popped one into her mouth. The next instant Miss Truefitt appeared. “Now, Stephanotie,” she said, “do you think for a single moment—Oh, my dear child, you really are too awful! You don't mean to say you are going to The Laurels like that?”
“Have a bon-bon?” was Stephanotie's response.
“You are downright rude. I will not allow you to offer me bon-bons again.”
“But a fresh box of them has just arrived. I got them by the eleven o'clock post to-day,” was Stephanotie's reckless answer; “and, oh, such beauties! And I had a letter from mother to say that I might order as many as ever I liked from Fuller's. I mean to write to them to ask them to send me ten shillings' worth. I'll ask for the newest varieties. There surely must be bon-bons which would not give you indigestion, Aunt Vi.”
“I must ask you to take off that dress, Stephanotie. I forbid you to go to The Laurels in such unsuitable attire.”
“Oh, lor'! and it's lovely!” said Maria, sotto voce, as she was leaving the room.
“What an unpleasant smell of peppermint!” said Miss Truefitt, sniffing at that moment. “You know, Stephanotie, how I have begged of you not to eat those unpleasant sweets in the dining room.”
“I didn't,” said Stephanotie; “it was only Maria.”
Maria backed out of the room with another violent “Oh, lor'!” and ran down to the kitchen.
“I'll have to give notice,” she said. “It's Miss Stephanotie; she's the most dazzlingly brilliant young lady I ever set eyes on; but mistress will never forgive me for eating that peppermint in her presence.”
“Rinse the mouth out, and take no notice,” was the cook's somewhat heartless rejoinder. “How do you say she was dressed, Maria?”
“Pink, the color of a rose, and that ravishing with lace. I never see'd such a dress,” said Maria. “She's the most beautiful young lady and the queerest I ever set eyes on.”
Stephanotie and her aunt were having a battle upstairs, and in the end the elder lady won. Stephanotie was obliged to take off the unsuitable dress and put on the gray cashmere. As subsequent events proved, it was lucky for her that she did do so.
CHAPTER XXII. — LETTERS.
By the post on the following morning there came two letters for Nora. She hailed them with a cry of delight.
“At last!” she said.
Mrs. Hartrick was not in the room; she had a headache, and did not get up to breakfast. Terence had already started for town. He had secured the post he desired in his uncle's office, and thought himself a very great man of business. Linda did not count for anything.
Nora flung herself into an easy-chair, and opened the first of her letters. It was from her mother. She was soon lost in its contents.
“MY DEAR NORA [wrote Mrs. O'Shanaghgan]: Be prepared for very great, startling, and at the same time gratifying, news. Your dear Uncle George, who has been spending the last three weeks with us, has made an arrangement which lifts us, my dear daughter, out of all pecuniary embarrassments. I will tell you as briefly as possible what has taken place. He had a consultation with your father, and induced him, at my suggestion, to unburden his mind to him. You know the Squire's ways. He pooh-poohed the subject and fought shy of it; but at last I myself brought him to task, and the whole terrible and disgraceful state of things was revealed. My dear Nora, my dear little girl, we were, it appears, on the brink of bankruptcy. In a couple of months O'Shanaghgan would no longer have been ours.
I cannot say that I should ever have regretted leaving this ramshackle and much-dilapidated place, but of course I should have shrunk from the disgrace, the exposure, the feeling that I was the cynosure of all eyes. That, indeed, would have cut me to the quick. Had your father consented to sell O'Shanaghgan and live in England, it would have been a moment of great rejoicing for me; but the place to be sold up over his head was quite a different matter. This, my dear Nora, seems to have been the position of affairs when your dear uncle, like a good providence or a guardian angel, appeared on the scene. Your uncle, my dearest Nora, is a very rich man. My dear brother has been careful with regard to money matters all his life, and is now in possession of a very large supply of this world's goods. Your dear uncle was good enough to come to the rescue, and has bought O'Shanaghgan from the man to whom your father owed the mortgage. O'Shanaghgan now belongs to your Uncle George.”
“Never!” cried Nora, springing to her feet.
“What is the matter, Nora?” said Linda.
“Don't talk to me for the present, or I'll say something you won't like to hear,” replied Nora.
“Really, I must say you are copying Molly in your manner.”
“Don't speak to me,” said Nora. Her face was crimson; she had never felt such a wild, surging sense of passion in the whole of her existence. Linda's calm gray eyes were upon her, however. She managed to suppress any more emotion, saw that her cousin was burning with curiosity, and continued the letter.
“Although, my dearest Nora, Castle O'Shanaghgan now belongs to your Uncle George, don't suppose for a single moment that he is going to be unkind to us. Far from it. To all appearance the place is still ours; but with, oh! such a difference. Your father is still, in the eyes of the tenants and of the country round, the owner of Castle O'Shanaghgan; but, after consulting with me, your Uncle George felt that he must not have the reins. His Irish nature, my dear—But I need not discuss that. You know as well as I do how reckless and improvident he is.”
“Oh, mother!” gasped Nora. She clenched her little white teeth, and had great difficulty in proceeding with her letter. Linda's curiosity, however, acted as a restorative, and she went on with her mother's lengthy epistle.
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