Read "A Life for a Love" by L.T. Meade online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Valentine really made an excellent housekeeper. Nobody expected it of her; her friends, the ladies, old and young, the girls, married or otherwise, who knew Valentine as they supposed very intimately, considered the idea of settling this remarkably ignorant young person down with a fixed income and telling her to buy with it, and contrive with it, and make two ends meet with it, quite one of the best jokes of the day.
Valentine did not regard it as a joke at all. She honestly tried, honestly studied, and honestly made a success as housekeeper and household manager.