Explore "The Way Home" by Henry Handel Richardson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
But before Christmas came, Mary's hope that things would somehow right themselves burned up anew--if hope that could be called which ran so counter to her own inclinations, and to the possible issue she now thought she descried.
With the onset of November it was the turn of "Buddlecombe Hall" to reopen. And now a wave of new life seemed to run through the sluggish little town. The Saxeby-Corbetts, returning, as it were took possession of the place; and they had this advantage over the Trehernes--a childless couple--that they counted a baker's dozen in family all told. Their arrival was after the fashion of crowned heads. First came dragloads of servants, male and female, and of varying ages--from the silver-headed butler down to young scullery and laundry-maids--after which the windows of the great house were flung up, the chimneys belched smoke, hammerings and beatings resounded; while various elderly women in the town tied on rusty black and went off to give obsequious aid. Footmen in livery lounged about the inns; grooms rode swathed horses out to exercise. The tradespeople wellnigh lost their wits with excitement. One heard of nothing, now, on entering a shop, but "the family," its needs and preferences.