A Brighton Tragedy (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Chapter Vi The great Miss Pinnifer, most renowned of all schoolmistresses, sat in her textit{sanctum sanctorum, as she delighted to call it, one wet day in October, between the hours of eleven and twelve in the forenoon. She studied a letter she held in her hand, and which she had already perused three times. To judge, however, from the expression on her face, she was still as far from comprehending its meaning as when she had first read it. For Miss Pinnifer to be at a loss to understand anything is scarcely conceivable; her governesses and her young ladies would have scouted the idea, had you said as much to them. Miss Pinnifer nonplussed !why, she would have routed all the learned professors at the rival Universities with the greatest ease had occasion demanded such a thing. Even the Vicar of the parish, the Reverend Aloysius McFadden, walked humbly before her, while, as for the curatesthey, poor wretches, absolutely grovelled at her feet. Was she not the sole proprietress of the famous Seminary for 105 Young Ladiesthat terribly expensive finishing school which is known as Athena House, and is situated in that most fashionable quarter of all Brighton, namely, Senlac Square ? Let me tell you, that to have it known that you were one of Miss Pinnifer's young ladies was almost akin to being of the Blood Royal. In some instances I have heard that it counted for moremuch more. All told, there were twenty of these charming young ladies on the boarding list, the very plainest of whichif there happened to be a plain one, which I very much doubtwas lovely enough to set the heart of Impressionable Man beating like a thermantidote paddle. To put the finishing touches to the education of these textit{houris there were four governesses, and to help the governesses five professors, not, of course, including the V...