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Read Ebook: Nervosos Lymphaticos e Sanguineos by Pimentel Alberto
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Ebook has 785 lines and 42329 words, and 16 pages
Commentator: Mary A. Livermore
"There is quite a lovely little book just come out about children, 'Castle Blair.'... The book is good and lovely and true, having the best description of a noble child in it that I ever read, and nearly the best description of the next best thing--a noble dog."--JOHN RUSKIN.
CASTLE BLAIR
A STORY OF YOUTHFUL DAYS
FLORA L. SHAW
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
MRS. MARY A. LIVERMORE
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
INTRODUCTION.
I find "Castle Blair" a bright, breezy story for children, most entertainingly told. The scenes are laid in Ireland. A bachelor uncle makes a home at Castle Blair for the children of his brother in India, in the English service, and for an orphaned niece from France, older than her cousins, who becomes the mistress of the house. She is educated and is altogether charming, possesses French tact and adaptability, is very fond of children, and lives out her motto, "Peace on earth, and good will toward men." The children from India are utterly untrained, high-spirited, and lawless, but are good-hearted, very capable, and innately noble. These, with the benignant bachelor uncle, absorbed in making collections of antiques and curios, and his disagreeable agent, Plunkett, who manages the estate, and is hard and unlovely, are the main characters of the story. Everything ends happily, the tone of the story is uplifting, and the young people who read "Castle Blair" will not only be charmed with it, but will be made happier and better for having read it.
MARY A. LIVERMORE.
MELROSE, September 22, 1902.
"Mrs. Daly's Cottage"
"Rosie pushed him so violently"
"She quickly clasped ... the Trout"
Showing Nessa the Grounds
"Through the Singing Children"
"'What have you to say?'"
"They chattered and laughed"
"On the Other Side of the Hedge"
CASTLE BLAIR;
A STORY OF YOUTHFUL DAYS.
Night had closed in round Castle Blair. In the park the great trees, like giant ghosts, loomed gloomily indistinct through the dim atmosphere. Not a sound was to be heard but the steady down-pour of rain, and, from time to time, a long, low shudder of trees as the night wind swept over the park. But there was one spot of light in the landscape. The hall door of the castle stood open, and behind it, in hospitable Irish fashion, there blazed a fire from which the warm rays streamed out and illumined the very rain itself; for the dampness caught the pleasant glow and reflected it back again, till all round about the doorway there was a halo of golden mist. The stone arch was hidden by it, but it formed a beautiful framework of light for certain little figures, who, dark and ruddy against the glowing background, were to be seen dancing backwards and forwards as though impatiently waiting for something. They were only children, and there were three of them, two fair-haired girls, and a boy.
"When will she come, I wonder?" said the elder of the girls, looking anxiously through the darkness in the direction of the avenue. "The train must have been ever so late."
"Of course it was!" replied the boy; "and besides it would take half the day to get from Ballyboden in this weather. We ought to have sent a sailing vessel for her instead of the carriage."
"Oh, she's sure to be all right; Uncle Harry was papa's favorite brother! But I wish Bobbo and Winnie had got in in time. Hark! what's that?"
"That" was the sound the little listeners expected. It drew nearer and nearer; the wet gravel crunched under the wheels, and at last out of the darkness emerged a heavy old carriage drawn by a pair of heavy old horses.
"I say, David, look sharp!" called Murtagh, from the doorway, and the next instant the carriage stopped at the bottom of the steps.
The boy who had spoken dashed down to open the door, but a sudden shyness seemed to fall upon his companions, and they shrank back into the hall. There was, however, little to be afraid of in the girl who in another moment stood upon the threshold. She seemed to be about eighteen or nineteen. There was a quiet grace in the slight figure; and the face in its setting of ruffled gold hair, was as soft as it was sparkling. Her most remarkable feature was a pair of large, dark gray eyes, which were looking out just now with a half-interested, half-wistful expression, that seemed to say this was no common arriving.
And indeed for her it was not. An absolute stranger, she was arriving for the first time at Castle Blair, to make a new home in a new country amongst relations she did not know. She had been told she was to live with an old bachelor uncle. She was not even aware of the children's existence.
The elder little girl seemed quite to understand that upon her devolved the duties of hostess, for she came forward now, and holding out her hand, said shyly, "How do you do?"
The new-comer took the hand and kept it in hers, drawing the child nearer to her as she answered in a sweet, clear voice: "I am very well, thank you, only a little tired with traveling. A long journey is very tiring."
"Yes, very," said the little girl, blushing; and there the conversation would have been likely to stop, but the boy, having taken the stranger's wraps from her, had now followed her into the hall and exclaimed heartily:
"Awfully tiring, and that drive from Ballyboden is so long. You must be very cold; come over to the fire."
As he spoke he dropped her rug and bag on the floor, and ran and pulled forward a wooden arm-chair. "Did you see the fire as you came up?" he added; "the door had got shut somehow, but we opened it on purpose."
"Yes, I saw it just now," she replied, as after a minute's hesitation she seated herself in the chair. "It looked so pleasant and cheerful through the rain, it made me wish to get to it."
"A fire's rather a jolly thing to see after a long drive in the dark," said the boy; "and we do know how to make fires here if we don't know anything else."
The children evidently expected their guest to stay in the hall, so she unfastened her gloves, and drawing them off, held out two white hands to the blaze in quiet enjoyment of the warmth. Then, after a pause, she turned again to the boy and said:
"We have not any one to introduce us to each other, so we must introduce ourselves; I daresay you know my name is Adrienne. Will you tell me your name, and the names of your sisters?"
The boy replied at once:
"I'm Murtagh. That tallest one is Rosamond Mary; Rosie we call her. She's twelve years old."
"No, Murtagh, you always make mistakes; I'm thirteen, very nearly!" exclaimed Rosie, suddenly forgetting her shyness.
"Oh, well! it's all the same. Of course, girls always like to be thought old," he explained, with a funny little chuckle. "Besides, you won't be thirteen till the winter.
"And that little thing is Eleanor Grace," he continued; "Ellie, she's called. She's only three. Winnie's the best of them; but she and Bobbo are out in the garden."
"Out! In this pouring rain?" said Adrienne, looking towards the open door.
"What does that matter?" returned Murtagh. "We don't mind rain. We're little barbarians; you needn't expect to find us like fussy French children."
A merry twinkle woke in Adrienne's eyes. Already she was forgetting the fear of strange bachelor uncles.
"No," she replied, with a significant glance at the disheveled state of the children's toilettes. "I did not think you were fussy."
Murtagh blushed in spite of himself, and looked deprecatingly at the knees of his somewhat worn knickerbockers, while his sister hastened to excuse herself.
"It is impossible to keep tidy with the boys," she explained; "they do pull one about so."
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