Read "Sink or Swim? , Volume I" by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was, as I before said, the day previous to that appointed for the / wedding, and Mrs. Beacham, feeling slightly bemuddled and restless, and / being withal half, and only half, reconciled to her son's marriage, was / passing a quiet hour in the large old-fashioned kitchen-garden, which / had formed for the best part of half a century her glory and her pride.
In the days before John's engagement to Honor Blake, and when the mother / and son together ruled the household in harmony, and with a prudent yet / not illiberal hand, Mrs. Beacham had been remarkable for a quiet / cheerfulness of disposition and -- making allowance for occasional / outbreaks -- for a kindly temper. The world had hitherto gone well with / her, and she -- in common gratitude bound -- had gone well with the world. / What wonder was it, then, that Updown Paddocks, with its cheery, / hospitable mistress, and with "young John," so pleasant as he was, and / open-handed, came to be well appreciated as a "good house," to use a / rustic but expressive phrase, throughout the whole country side?