Silverbeach Manor Read Online Free PDF

the country town, and holds
her head rather high in Polesheaton in consequence. But in future
between herself and the Sothams there is a great gulf fixed. Pansy
feels they are not the kind of people society expects her to
know.
    "Well, think
of that now -- you a fine lady, Pansy!" says Martha, the elder
sister. "They say Mrs. Adair is rolling in money, and has nobody to
leave it to. You might be a lady of property one of these days,
Pansy. Don't it seem funny to think of it?"
    "Your Aunt
Temperance will be lonesome. Isn't she feeling it very much?" asks
Ellen, who is intensely jealous in her heart of Pansy's change of
fortune, and thinks Mrs. Adair might have made a far better choice
had she looked nearer Polesheaton Farm.
    "No, she takes
it quite quietly," answers Pansy. "Of course, Aunt Temperance has
often said she wished she could do more for me, seeing my mother
was a lady; and now there is a chance of my getting on in life, she
would not for worlds stand in the way. I quite intend to make
Aunt's fortune one of these days, for she has been so good to me
all my life."
    "Yes,"
says Martha, "your aunt do take it
wonderful quiet, Pansy. Folks are saying they should have thought
she'd have fretted a deal more over losing you."
    "Aunt is very
busy preparing for our new lodger," says Pansy. "She is making new
chintzes for the chairs, and washing the blind, so her mind is full
of other things. And it wouldn't be like Aunt Temperance to fret
over anything that's for my good."
    All the same,
Pansy is thankful in her heart when the week draws to an end, for
the look in Temperance Piper's eyes as they follow her here and
there brings the tears to her own, and sometimes the feeling rushes
upon her that her aunt's heart may quietly break when she is gone,
and that it is wicked to sever her life from the one that has
sacrificed days and nights for her.
    If
nobody else understands what lies beneath Miss Temperance Piper's
quietude, little Deb comprehends her mistress. She lies awake in
her little attic, wondering if she could
learn the violin, and make tidies for the chairs, and fill the
vases, and thus in some degree make up for the absence of beautiful
Miss Pansy. Meanwhile, she keeps the shop like a new pin, and
polishes the counter till it shines, and surprises Miss Piper by
rising early so as to bring some look of pleasure to that pale,
bewildered face.
    At last the
day of departure comes round. Long before she is due at The Grange,
Pansy arrays herself in the drab travelling costume trimmed with
brown fur that has been made at the leading Firlands draper's, and
wanders about her room, scarcely caring to go downstairs and face
her aunt at breakfast. Deb has received a bequest of her old
dresses and many of her possessions, but for all that the little
handmaid's eyes are red as she boils an egg in honour of the
traveller, and places before Pansy a quarter of a pound of best
fresh butter and one of Miss Piper's best baked loaves.
    "Make a good
breakfast, darling," says Aunt Temperance, cheerily. "The egg is
boiled just as you like it, and I have ground you some fresh coffee
and made it half with milk as a treat."
    Then the
remembrance comes to her that this is the last meal she will
provide for Pansy, and Miss Piper is in half a mind to retreat to
the washhouse, lest Pansy might be depressed by her looks.
    "I will
write and tell you of our arrival at Silverbeach Manor. We are to
stay there a fortnight before we travel," says Pansy
huskily. " I am certain Mrs. Adair will
let me write to you now and then, auntie dear -- she is kindness
itself."
    But Miss Piper
understands that the lady who has adopted her child is kind in her
own way and according to her own will -- selfish even in her
liberality -- and she expects very little from Pansy's promises of
letters.
    "I wonder when
we shall see you again, Miss Pansy?" says Deb, laying a timid,
reverent finger on the fur. "Lawks, miss, what a sight of money
that there must have cost!"
    But the