The recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn (The Academy editions of Australian literature) [Unknown Binding]

Henry Kingsley (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Academy editions of Australian literature | Publication Date: 1996

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: acquaintances was very welcome. The Major and he very soon became fast friends, and noble Mrs. Buckley was seldom a day without spending an hour at least, with the beautiful, wilful Mary Thornton. Chapter IV Some new Faces The twilight of a winter's evening, succeeding a short and stormy day, was fast fading into night, and old John Thornton sat dozing in his chair before the fire, waiting for candles to resume his reading. He was now but little over sixty, yet his hair was snowy white, and his face looked worn and aged. Any one who watched his countenance now in the light of the blazing wood, might see by the down-drawn brows and uneasy expression that the old man was unhappy and disquieted. The book that lay in his lap was a volume of Shakespeare, open at the " Merchant of Venice." Something he had come across in that play had set him thinking. The book had fallen on his knees, and he sat pondering till he had fallen asleep. Yet even in his slumber the uneasy expression stayed upon his face, and now and then he moved uneasily in his chair. What could there be to vex him ? Not poverty at all events, for not a year ago a relation, whom he had seldom seen, and of late years entirely lost sight of, had left him 5,ooo/. and a like sum to his daughter Mary. And his sister, Miss Thornton, a quiet good old maid, who had been a governess all her life, had come to live with him, 'so that he was now comfortably off, with the only two relations he cared about in the world staying with him to make his old age comfortable. Yet notwithstanding all this, John was unhappy. His daughter Mary sat sewing in the window, ostensibly for the purpose of using the last of the daylight. But the piece of white muslin in her hand claimed but a small part of her attention. Sometimes she gav...

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 689 pages
• Publisher: Distributed in the USA and Canada by International Specialized Book Services (1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0702228125
• ISBN-13: 978-0702228124