A Bloodsmoor Romance Read Online Free PDF

unsmiling, “if one is inclined to find such gladsome occasions intolerable. ”
    Constance Philippa was crocheting, with no excess of industry, or concentration, a pretty pink smock for Cousin Rowena Kale’s newborn baby girl; Malvinia, delicately hiding a yawn, had just allowed her sizable square of needlepoint to fall into her lap; Octavia was humming to herself, and working, with great contentment, and exactitude, on a patchwork child’s panda, with the most mischievous black button-eyes; Samantha frowned over a towel meant to be elaborately cross-stitched in gay orange yarn; and the sullen Deirdre was crocheting, with a perceptible absence of spirit, a white antimacassar for the haircloth settee in Mrs. Zinn’s parlor.
    â€œWhy, Constance Philippa, what can you mean!” Octavia inquired of her elder sister, her eyes opened wide with amazement. “You know very well the tea was a magnificent event, and quite fitting, to mark the end of our o’erlong summer. And you, in particular, should be grateful,” she added, her lower lip trembling for a scant moment, “for you are now betrothed: and naught but happiness awaits you.”
    Samantha glanced up at Octavia, and at Constance Philippa; and seemed about to speak; then thought better of it, to her credit, and resumed her somewhat clumsy work. Deirdre, however, remained with her head bowed, and worked so mechanically at her crocheting, that the hook flashed and winked most wickedly.
    Malvinia sighed again, and made a very desultory effort to take up her needlepoint. “I have come to believe,” she said, “that melancholy and happiness are inextricably joined: and that, were they separate, we should soon find even happiness unspeakably dull!”
    By this time, every one of the numerous guests had departed Kidde­master Hall: and what a confus’d merriment there had been, of broughams, and victorias, and surreys, and prancing matched teams with high-flung heads! And costumed footmen with countenances so proper, they might have been painted; and bright-shining eyes, and tear-streaked cheeks, amidst farewell embraces enjoyed by the ladies. All eyes had dwelt upon Constance Philippa’s fiancé, the redoubtable Baron von Mainz, as he galloped off on his noble black steed; all eyes had followed the bronze-hued coach of the house of Du Pont de Nemours, in which Malvinia’s “young man” Cheyney, and divers members of his family, had departed for the Brandywine. Farewell, ah, farewell! For, indeed, the summery days are fast declining! The Whittons—the Kales—the Bayards—the Gilpins—the Woodruffs—Reverend and Mrs. Silas Hewett—Cousins Odille, and Hayden, and Steven, and Rowena, and Flora, and Basil—Mr. and Mrs. Martineau, and their lovely daughter Delphine—the Broomes—the Millers—the Rhinelanders—Mr. Lucius Rumford, of stately Rumford Hall—Professors Jameson, Newbold, and Lyndon, of the American Philosophical Society—and Mr. Zinn, hurrying away on foot, tugging nervously at his collar and carrying his regal top hat crushed beneath his arm. Farewell! For nothing at Kidde­master Hall will ever be quite the same again.
    For some minutes the sisters bent assiduously to their work; and then Malvinia said in a languid voice: “Father spoke well this afternoon, I believe. He is so eloquent!—and so charming, when his color is high, and his eyes glisten. His views on the future of the nation—the inevitability of progress, the evolution of perfection—were most persuasive. Yet, did you note that wizened little Professor Newbold? I thought he looked somewhat skeptical.”
    â€œSkeptical?” Samantha asked, startled. “Why, what do you mean?”
    â€œPerhaps it was Professor Jameson,” Malvinia said carelessly. “I cannot keep the old gentlemen straight, there are so many; and they are always staring at one!”