Explore "The Grim House" by Mary Louisa Molesworth on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Rupert's proposal was just what I was hoping for. I responded most cordially, feeling half ashamed of my real motive for so doing when I saw the unmistakable gratification in his eyes. So I resolved to do my best -- but a small "best" at most -- to help him, especially when, on following him to the library, I saw the little preparations he had already made there for my comfort, which he was half anxious, half shy about.
The season was still early enough in the year for the weather to be very uncertain, if indeed in this so-called "temperate" zone of ours it is ever anything else. It was chilly enough to make a little fire acceptable, particularly in the large book-lined room with its heavy furniture and hangings and northern aspect. And to this my young host had seen. The flames danced merrily upwards, and a small table and eminently comfortable leathern arm-chair were drawn up at one side of the hearth.