Charlotte M Yonge

The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations Charlotte M Yonge

Publisher Marketing: Si douce est la Marguerite.-CHAUCER. "Miss Winter, are you busy? Do you want this afternoon? Can you take a good long walk?" "Ethel, my dear, how often have I told you of your impetuosity-you have forgotten." "Very well"-with an impatient twist-"I beg your pardon. Good-morning, Miss Winter," said a thin, lank, angular, sallow girl, just fifteen, trembling from head to foot with restrained eagerness, as she tried to curb her tone into the requisite civility. "Good-morning, Ethel, good-morning, Flora," said the prim, middle-aged daily governess, taking off her bonnet, and arranging the stiff little rolls of curl at the long, narrow looking-glass, the border of which distorted the countenance. "Good-morning," properly responded Flora, a pretty, fair girl, nearly two years older than her sister. "Will you-" began to burst from Etheldred's lips again, but was stifled by Miss Winter's inquiry, "Is your mamma pretty well to-day?" "Oh! very well," said both at once; "she is coming to the reading." And Flora added, "Papa is going to drive her out to-day." "I am very glad. And the baby?" "I do believe she does it on purpose!" whispered Ethel to herself, wriggling fearfully on the wide window-seat on which she had precipitated herself, and kicking at the bar of the table, by which manifestation she of course succeeded in deferring her hopes, by a reproof which caused her to draw herself into a rigid, melancholy attitude, a sort of penance of decorum, but a rapid motion of the eyelids, a tendency to crack the joints of the fingers, and an unquietness at the ends of her shoes, betraying the restlessness of the digits therein contained.