The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton Read Online Free PDF

to have the matter over and done with."
    Beatrice’s opinion was a bit different: "I am happy, positively glad, without reservation, to add my portion to the poor girl’s, if that is what it takes to help her into some useful place and occupation. I am at my wit’s end with her."
    Harriet added, "Ella Rose and Hannah may talk all they please about prosperous this and prosperous that, but some people aren’t so young as they once were and might be thinking of the future, if you ask me."
    All considered it a favor of Providence that because of Miriam’s death no portion would go to "educating those little darky children, after Papa was a lifelong Democrat." They agreed that there’d been something unnatural about that whole business, but Miriam had never listened to reason and didn’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain, which meant that instead of pouring the fruits of her life of labors into the useless teaching of those who couldn’t benefit from it, she should have established herself in a lucrative chicken and egg business. But thankfully, in spite of the tragedy of her early death, things had turned out well in the matter of my father’s political principles.
    Taken all in all, they felt that this discussion was a credit to the family and further evidence that as a group, the sisters were superior to the more typical squabbling over estates that you saw everywhere around you. "Our mother taught us better than that," asserted Beatrice complacently, and the others agreed. They were referring to their own mother, not mine. "And you," said Harriet to me, "stand to profit. You should be mindful of how fortunate you are." I did, and I was.
    Roland Brereton resolved the tangle, though of course with much d—ing to h— of the whole prolonged negotiation. He counted out the sum of money, picked up a handful of notes and gave them to me, then divided the rest into six equivalent portions. In my hand, I found that I held $472. Harriet said that she had to admire the way Roland always went to the heart of things, and that was the end of our father’s house. Even after Father had gone to live with Beatrice, for as long as he could he had walked to the house on fine days with his silver-handled stick and stood and regarded it from every angle, like a man wondering whether to purchase it.
    The next time I saw Thomas Newton was at a dramatic exhibition at Danake Hall. My brother-in-law Horace had a fondness for every sort of singing or theatrical performance, but my sister Beatrice disapproved of the man who put them on, George Adams, who was called "Crazy Adams" by some. Even so, she let Horace escort Annie and me to the performance, because she had heard there was to be a demonstration of elocution edifying to young ladies, comprising in part a reading of the last scenes of Mr. Dickens’s Dombey and Son, wherein young Florence Dombey is reconciled with her father, and some other pieces of the same sort. A Mrs. Duff, all the way from New York, a woman proficient in portraying virtuous young ladies, was to act the part of Florence.
    Since the episode with the money at the creek, my feelings about Mr. Newton had changed somewhat. I could not figure out how he had communicated with Frank, or given him the money, or even how he knew that Frank would know where the cave was. Obviously, Mr. Newton and Roger Howell had conspired together ahead of time, but Mr. Newton’s subtlety in these operations made me sense that there was more to him than met the eye. And then there was the generosity of the gift. Quincy was full of people who left out some biscuits or an old shirt or a worn pair of shoes, and knew when these objects had disappeared that some fugitive had been helped along the way. But the difference between giving away something easily done without and a not inconsiderable sum of money impressed me. And it was true as well that Miriam’s death had piqued my interest in her principles in a way that her example had