Town and Country Author:Frances Milton Trollope 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. No intelligent reader can doubt the sound judgment, and excellent good sense of the lady from whose letter to Mrs. Hart well I have made the fore... more »going extract. But even such a mind as hers may occasionally fail, when trusting to its prophetic powers; and so it happened in the present instance. The visit of Mr. Cuthbert at the Vicarage, however, was only prolonged to the moderate term of a week and a day; for, no sooner did Mrs, Osterly receive the news of his arrival in her neighbourhood, and of his intended visit to her Manor House, than she took prompt measures for her return to it; for Mr. Cuthbert was one of those happy individuals to whom all the world seem agreed to do honour, and homage,and favour, and kindness, and hospitality and benevolence, and everything else that is flattering and amiable, for no other reason, as it seemed, than because he really wanted nothing that any body could bestow upon him. Either habit or temper, however, had taught him to receive all this as so completely a matter of course, that he never testified, or indeed felt, any very great sense of obligation, or gratitude, for anything that could be done for him. He had once been a father for a few months, and the loss of his child he deplored, for he certainly felt that it was in some sort a part of himself. But not so did he feel the loss of its mother, which took place a few months afterwards; and to say truth, she was a wife that few men would have regretted, for she was both ugly and cross; but having also been rich and noble, such a degree of observance towards her was necessary while she lived, as to render her death a very pleasant event to her husband. For about a year after his restoration to liberty, he seemed to think of nothing but enjoying it; and as people in th...« less