The Household of McNeil (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1890 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. A SECRET LETTER AND ITS ISSUES. Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practise to deceive A man with all the bad qualities his language has names for. Look round the habitable world, how few Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue I So blind we are, our wishes are so vain, That what we most desire proves most our pain. Dryden. REAT were the needs of the present time; they made their demands first, and in their attack, so surprising and so blunt, men forgot all about the future, its lofty ideals and its beneficent plans. Grizelda obeyed her father because the powers present were too much for her to resist; but she was intensely angry, and her anger did not evaporate in a few indignant tears and words. Indeed, 'she never thought of weeping. Her first act on reaching her room was to write a note which she sent by her maid-to Lord Maxwell. She was especially anxious to prevent any positive quarrel between him and her father; and she knew if the McNeil's orders were carried out no future reconciliation was possible. Hitherto Maxwell's admiration for Grizelda McNeil had been shown within legitimate and honourable bounds. In the houses of the neighbouring gentry, when he met her, he chose to linger by her side, to walk with her in the gardens, to make her conspicuously his partner in the dance. Grizelda was fond of riding, and it happened, perhaps with some vague understanding of its likelihood, that their paths were often identical. And there had been at these times such love-making as naturally comes to pass when youth and beauty and inexperience are at the mercy of a handsome man, skilled in all the ways of selfish gratification. For undoubtedly Maxwell was handsome. He had an aristocratic bearing, a manner at once suave and authoritati...