Modern Broods

Modern Broods

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Title: Modern Broods
Author: Charlotte Mary Yonge
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7191] [This file was first
posted on March 26, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MODERN
BROODS ***

Transcribed from the 1900 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price,
email [email protected]

MODERN BROODS, or DEVELOPMENTS UNLOOKED FOR

CHAPTER I
--TORTOISES AND HARES

"Whate'er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven, Though it be what thou
canst not hope to see." - HARTLEY COLERIDGE.
The scene was a drawing-room, with old-fashioned heavy sash
windows opening on a narrow brick-walled town-garden sloping down
to a river, and neatly kept. The same might be said of the room, where
heavy old-fashioned furniture, handsome but not new, was concealed
by various flimsy modernisms, knicknacks, fans, brackets, china
photographs and water-colours, a canary singing loud in the window in
the winter sunshine.
"Miss Prescott," announced the maid; but, finding no auditor save the
canary, she retreated, and Miss Prescott looked round her with a half
sigh of recognition of the surroundings. She was herself a quiet-
looking, gentle lady, rather small, with a sweet mouth and eyes of hazel,
in a rather worn face, dressed in a soft woollen and grey fur, with
headgear to suit, and there was an air of glad expectation, a little flush,
that did not look permanent, on her thin cheeks.
"Is it you, my dear Miss Prescott?" was the greeting of the older hostess
as she entered, her grey hair rough and uncovered, and her dress of
well-used black silk, her complexion of the red that shows wear and
care. "Then it is true?" she asked, as the kiss and double shake of the
hand was exchanged.
"May I ask? Is it true? May I congratulate you?"

"Oh, yes, it is true!" said Miss Prescott, breathlessly. "I suppose the
girls are at the High School?"
"Yes, they will be at home at one. Or shall I send for them?"
"No, thank you, Mrs. Best. I shall like to have a little time with you
first. I can stay till a quarter-past three."
"Then come and take off your things. I do not know when I have been
so glad!"
"Do the girls know?" asked Miss Prescott, following upstairs to a
comfortable bedroom, evidently serving also the purposes of a private
room, for writing table and account books stood near the fire.
"They know something; Kate Bell heard a report from her cousins, and
they have been watching anxiously for news from you."
"I would not write till I knew more. I hope they have not raised their
expectations too high; for though it is enough to be an immense relief,
it is not exactly affluence. I have been with Mr. Bell going into the
matter and seeing the place," said Miss Prescott, sitting comfortably
down in the arm-chair Mrs. Best placed for her, while she herself sat
down in another, disposing themselves for a talk over the fire.
"Mr. Bell reckons it at about 600 pounds a year."
"And an estate?"
"A very pretty cottage in a Devonshire valley, with the furniture and
three acres of land."
"Oh! I believe the girls fancy that it is at least as large as Lord
Coldhurst's."
"Yes, I was in hopes that they would have heard nothing about it."
"It came through some of their schoolfellows; one cannot help things
getting into the air."
"And there getting inflated like bubbles," said Miss Prescott, smiling.
"Well, their expectations will have a fall, poor dears!"
"And it does not come from their side of the family," said Mrs. Best.
"Of course not! And it was wholly unexpected, was it not?"
"Yes, I had my name of Magdalen from my great aunt Tremlett; but she
had never really forgiven my mother's marriage, though