Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866 Excerpt:... deal better they would reflect triumphantly. Abigail wondered with a vague wonder whether she would thus have publicly asserted her possession of Humphrey, and if by any chance she could have as glibly mangled similar carelessly picked-up details. There were two particulars Abigail discovered of Mrs. Humphrey before the company rose from the dinner-table. First, that the young wife had a great deal to Bay which was not very much worth hearing, unless because it was the generally inoffensive and occasionally airy gossip of a pretty, pleasant, cultivated woman; and second, that although her dialect was refined and her articulation correct, there was something slightly harsh in the tones of her voice, bass like a man's, which might form a good second in a song, but were a little startling and not without a strain of coarseness in the beautiful, elegant young woman, who was so insensible to her own gills except as means to an end, yet who enjoyed with a keen appreciation being a bride,--Humphrey Bingham, the handsome, hearty young squire of the Hanger's envied bride. As the dinner wore on, the constraint of the principal persons in the party lessened. Even Abigail felt as if she had grown accustomed to the scene, as if it were not only a necessity, but the natural order of things, that she should be sitting there answering intelligibly, now and then to Tom Prior's eccentric spurts of conversation on factories, Shakspeare, fieldfares; attending as far as she could manage to the entertainment of the guests; venturing a smiling word up the table to draw Miss Bella Mainwaring and the scrupulous curate into a nearer approach to social intercourse; gently arousing Tom Prior to the knowledge that he was turning his back on Sophy Lewis, pouting and eating her pheasant...