Read "The Fatal Three, Volume III" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The house and grounds were in such perfect order that there was very little to be done in the way of preparation for the honeymoon visitors. Even the pianos had been periodically tuned, and the clocks had been regularly wound. Two or three servants would have to be engaged for the period, and that was all; and even this want Mrs. Dawson proposed to supply without going off the premises.
The housemaid had a sister, who was an accomplished parlourmaid and carver; the under-gardener's eldest daughter was pining for a preliminary canter in the kitchen, and the gardener's wife was a retired cook, and would be delighted to take all the rougher part of the cooking, while Mrs. Dawson devoted her art to those pretty tiny kickshaws in which she excelled. There were peaches ripening in the peach-house, and the apricots were going to be a show. There was wine in the cellar that would have satisfied an alderman on his honeymoon. Mildred's business at The Hook might have been completed in a day, yet she lingered there for a week, and still lingered on, loving the place with a love which was mingled with pain, yet happier there than she could have been anywhere else in the world, she thought.