Now this agreeable vision was abruptly changed. This slide of the magic
lantern was smashed to fragments. And Mrs. Brigg was filled with the
righteous anger of a balked and venerable robber. As a mother, dependent
upon the earnings of her child in some godly profession might feel on the
abrupt and reasonless refusal of that child to continue in it, so did
Mrs. Brigg feel now.
The lady of the feathers had, for the moment at least, given up
her profession. She sat at home with folded hands at night. It was
earth-shaking. It stirred the depths of the Brigg being. Quakings of a
world in commotion were as nothing to it. And the sweet Brigg dream that
had dawned on the last night of the old year, dream of a rich "toff" in
love with Cuckoo and winding her up to gilded circles, in which the fall
of night set gay ladies bareheaded, and scattered all feathered hats to
limbo, died childless and leaving no legacies. Certainly, Cuckoo was not
making money on the quiet enough in one night to keep her as seven or
fourteen nights would formerly have supplied. Mrs. Brigg questioned,
remonstrated, stormed, sulked, was rude, insinuating, artful, blunt, and
blackguardly--all to no purpose. Cuckoo would give no explanation of her
conduct.
Pages:
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688