Wives and Daughters

Wives and Daughters

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Title: Wives and Daughters
Author: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Release Date: July, 2003 [EBook #4274] [Edition 10 was first posted
on December 26, 2001] [This edition was first posted on June 26, 2003]
Edition: 11

Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, WIVES
AND DAUGHTERS ***

This e-text was produced by Charles Aldarondo and revised for this
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WIVES AND DAUGHTERS
BY
ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL

CHAPTER I
THE DAWN OF A GALA DAY
To begin with the old rigmarole of childhood. In a country there was a
shire, and in that shire there was a town, and in that town there was a
house, and in that house there was a room, and in that room there was a
bed, and in that bed there lay a little girl; wide awake and longing to get
up, but not daring to do so for fear of the unseen power in the next
room--a certain Betty, whose slumbers must not be disturbed until six
o'clock struck, when she wakened of herself 'as sure as clockwork', and
left the household very little peace afterwards. It was a June morning,
and early as it was, the room was full of sunny warmth and light.
On the drawers opposite to the little white dimity bed in which Molly
Gibson lay, was a primitive kind of bonnet-stand on which was hung a
bonnet, carefully covered over from any chance of dust, with a large
cotton handkerchief, of so heavy and serviceable a texture that if the
thing underneath it had been a flimsy fabric of gauze and lace and
flowers, it would have been altogether 'scromfished' (again to quote
from Betty's vocabulary). But the bonnet was made of solid straw, and
its only trimming was a plain white ribbon put over the crown, and

forming the strings. Still, there was a neat little quilling inside, every
plait of which Molly knew, for had she not made it herself the evening
before, with infinite pains? and was there not a little blue bow in this
quilling, the very first bit of such finery Molly had ever had the
prospect of wearing?
Six o'clock now! the pleasant, brisk ringing of the church bells told that;
calling every one to their daily work, as they had done for hundreds of
years. Up jumped Molly, and ran with her bare little feet across the
room, and lifted off the handkerchief and saw once again the bonnet;
the pledge of the gay bright day to come. Then to the window, and after
some tugging she opened the casement, and let in the sweet morning air.
The dew was already off the flowers in the garden below, but still
rising from the long hay-grass in the meadows directly beyond. At one
side lay the little town of Hollingford, into a street of which Mr.
Gibson's front door opened; and delicate columns, and little puffs of
smoke were already beginning to rise from many a cottage chimney
where some housewife was already up, and preparing breakfast for the
bread-winner of the family.
Molly Gibson saw all this, but all she thought about it was, 'Oh! it will
be a fine day! I was afraid it never, never would come; or that, if it ever
came, it would be a rainy day!' Five-and-forty years ago, children's
pleasures in a country town were very simple, and Molly had lived for
twelve long years without the occurrence of any event so great as that
which was now impending. Poor child! it is true that she had lost her
mother, which was a jar to the whole tenour of her life; but that was
hardly an event in the sense referred to; and besides, she had been too
young