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Three to one; or Some passages out of the life of Amicia lady Sweetapple
Three to one or Some passages out of the life of Amicia lady Sweetapple Author:George Webbe Dasent 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 YOUNG LADIES AT LUNCHEON. j]S we turn from the stables and look at the back of the house, where the entrance really is, we see the tw... more »o daughters of the house tripping up the stone steps, warned by the luncheon gong to make haste home. High Beech was in all respects a punctual, regular house. Breakfast, luncheon, and dinner were served to the minute, and if the commercial career of the house of Carlton conveyed any moral, it was that of the absolute value of time. In this respect, you see this Carlton House was the very reverse of another Carlton House, of which we have all read or heard,] and which stood where Carlton Terrace, and Carlton Gardens, and the Athenaaum, and the Travellers' and the Reform clubs now stand ; and so, while the house of the Carltons at High Beech flourished and prospered like a bay tree, the other has been longsince pulled down, its site built over, and its very name half forgotten. But there are the two young ladies tripping up the steps while our story halts to moralise. There they were, and you could even tell from their backs that they were young and happy. Let them run off, merry young things, in the warm sunshine; we can never catch them now and see their faces. We must wait till they come down to luncheon. They were not long in making their appearance, and found their mother waiting for them. And now a most uncharitable thing must be said. In no other point of view was High Beech more fortunate than in this: in it the age of governesses was past. Their dreary reign was over. There are of course exceptions to every rule, and some families have been very happy with their governesses; but in general they are little better than policemen in women's clothes, or rather female detectives with whom you have to be on intimat...« less