Strange Story, a — Volume 01 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 34 of 73 (46%)
page 34 of 73 (46%)
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dear, you ask who has taken it. I will inform you,--a particular friend
of mine." "Indeed! Dear me!" said Miss Brabazon, looking confused. "I hope I did not say anything to--" "Wound my feelings. Not in the least. You said your uncle Sir Phelim employed a coachmaker named Ashleigh, that Ashleigh was an uncommon name, though Ashley was a common one; you intimated an appalling suspicion that the Mrs. Ashleigh who had come to the Hill was the coach maker's widow. I relieve your mind,--she is not; she is the widow of Gilbert Ashleigh, of Kirby Hall." "Gilbert Ashleigh," said one of the guests, a bachelor, whose parents had reared him for the Church, but who, like poor Goldsmith, did not think himself good enough for it, a mistake of over-modesty, for he matured into a very harmless creature. "Gilbert Ashleigh? I was at Oxford with him,--a gentleman commoner of Christ Church. Good-looking man, very; sapped--" "Sapped! what's that?--Oh, studied. That he did all his life. He married young,--Anne Chaloner; she and I were girls together; married the same year. They settled at Kirby Hall--nice place, but dull. Poyntz and I spent a Christmas there. Ashleigh when he talked was charming, but he talked very little. Anne, when she talked, was commonplace, and she talked very much. Naturally, poor thing,---she was so happy. Poyntz and I did not spend another Christmas there. Friendship is long, but life is short. Gilbert Ashleigh's life was short indeed; he died in the seventh year of his marriage, leaving only one child, a girl. Since then, though I never spent another Christmas at Kirby Hall, I have frequently spent a |
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