Read The Ladies of Grace Adieu: And Other Stories for Free Online Page A

Frederick Littleworth?"
    They were silent.
    "Oh, ladies, what have you done?"
    After a while Miss Tobias spoke again. "That night," she said, "after Captain Winbright and Mr Littleworth had . . . left us, I saw someone. At the other end of the passageway I saw, very dimly, someone tall and slender, with the wings of birds beating all around their shoulders. Mr Strange, / am tall and the wings of birds were, at that moment, beating around my shoulders . . ."
    "And so, it was your reflection."
    "Reflection? By what means?" asked Miss Tobias. "There is no glass in that part of the house."
    "So, what did you do?" asked Strange a little uncertainly.
    "I said aloud the words of the Yorkshire Game. Even you, Mr Strange, must know the words of the Yorkshire Game." Miss Tobias smiled a little sarcastically. "Mr Norrell is, after all, the Yorkshire magician, is he not?"
    "I greet thee, Lord, and bid thee welcome to my heart," said Strange.
    Miss Tobias inclined her head.
    Now it was Cassandra's turn. "Poor man, you cannot even reconcile what you believe in your heart to be true and what you are obliged to write in the quarterly reviews. Can you go back to London and tell this odd tale? For I think you will find that it is full of all kinds of nonsense that Mr Norrell will not like Raven Kings and the magic of wild creatures and the magic of women. You are no match for us, for we three are quite united, while you, sir, for all your cleverness, are at war, even with yourself. If ever a time comes, when your heart and your head declare a truce, then I suggest you come back to Grace Adieu and then you may tell us what magic we may or may not do."
    It was Strange's turn to be silent. The three ladies of Grace Adieu wished him a good morning and walked on. Mrs Field alone favoured him with a smile (of a rather pitying sort).
    ***
    A month after Mr and Mrs Strange's return to London, Mr Woodhope was surprized to receive a letter from Sir Walter Pole, the politician. Mr Woodhope had never met the gentleman, but now Sir Walter suddenly wrote to offer Mr Woodhope the rich living of Great Hitherden, in Northamptonshire. Mr Woodhope could only imagine that it was Strange's doing Strange and Sir Walter were known to be friends. Mr Wood-hope was sorry to leave Grace Adieu and sorry to leave Miss Parbringer, but he comforted himself with the thought that there were bound to be ladies, almost as pretty, in Northamptonshire and if there were not, well, he would be a richer clergyman there than he was in Grace Adieu and so better able to bear the loneliness.
    Miss Cassandra Parbringer only smiled when she heard he was going and that same afternoon, went out walking on the high hills, in a fine autumn wind, with Mrs Field and Miss Tobias - as free, said Miss Parbringer, as any women in the kingdom.

WHEN I WAZ a child I lived at Dr Quince's on the other side of Lickerish Hill. Sometimes in a winters-twilight I have look't out of Dr Quince's windowe and seen Lickerish Hill (where the Pharisees live) like a long brown shippe upon a grey sea and I have seen far-awaie lights like silver starres among the dark trees.
    My mother was mayde and cook to Dr Quince, an ancient and learned gentleman (face, very uglie like the picture of a horse not well done; dry, scantie beard; moist, pale eyes). This good old man quickly perceived what waz hid from my mother: that my naturall Genius inclin'd not to sweeping dairies or baking cakes or spinning or anie of the hundred thinges she wish'd me to know, but to Latin, Greeke and the study of Antiquities, and these he taught me. He alwaies meant that I should learne Hebrew, Geometrie, the Mathematiques, and he would have taught me this yeare but Time putt a trick on him and he died last summer.
    The day after the pore old doctor died my mother baked five pies. Now malicious persons will open their mouths and lies will flie out and buzz about the World, but the truth is that those pies (which my mother baked) were curiously