Explore "The Rubicon" by E.F. Benson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Mrs. Carston was a widow, with only one daughter. She was a woman to whom querulousness had, by habit, become a second nature, but she had, as she often remarked, cause enough for complaint. Her husband, of whom she had been very fond, died suddenly, leaving her with one girl, a younger son, and less income than she could comfortably manage on. Then, two months later, her son died, leaving her alone with Gertrude. Her health, never very good, was much weakened by the double shock, and of late years she had become a _habituee_ at Aix for four or five weeks every May, when there were plenty of English people there, with whom she used to talk gossip, and bemoan her unfortunate health.
Gertrude managed to be very happy during the earlier part of that month.