Miss Langley's will Author:Langley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE Marchioness of Donnington this autumn chanced to be numbered among those unfortunates compelled by some perverse destiny to linger in London ... more »when it is wholly forsaken by the great body of their compeers. But to her there was, in truth, little or no sense of hardship in the case : she regretted neither the pleasures of " the season" nor the departure of their votaries. Her occupations were all of a grave and independent character, such as the cessation of the hubbub that had lately reigned around her gave her only the better opportunity of pursuing. The cause of her detention was some rather perplexed family arrangement, consequent on the recent decease of her stepson, in which she had undertaken to act for herhusband, approving herself, as the agent was heard slyly to remark, " a much better man of business than my Lord." The latter, an habitual invalid, was now at Cheltenham, with his daughter, Lady Arabella Vere ; and her only son, the present Lord Carisbrook, being at Eton, the Marchioness, in the seclusion of her mansion in Grosvenor Square, had no other companion than the little Emma. The ordeal of a first entrance amidst a group of unoccupied male domestics had been endured. Across that wide hall, and up that stately staircase, Catherine had been conducted to her own apartment. The female servant who escorted her had withdrawn, after a half-offer of assistance which she evidently did not expect to be accepted. Glad to be alone, Catherine's point of attraction was naturally the window. The view it commanded was that most usual in the rear of great houses in London—a long perspective of leads, yards, and stables, terminated at some distance by another corresponding range. The prospect certainly was more novel than agreeable, and was not enlivened by the...« less