Explore "Shirley" by Charlotte Brontë on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Martin had planned well: he had laid out a dexterously concerted scheme for his private amusement; but older and wiser schemers than he are often doomed to see their finest-spun projects swept to annihilation by the sudden broom of Fate--that fell housewife, whose red arm none can control.
The kitchen visited and soothed, Moore betook himself to the parlour; he had Mrs. Yorke to appease; not quite so easy a task as the pacification of her housemaids. There she sat plunged in sullen dudgeon; the gloomiest speculations on the depths of man's ingratitude absorbing her thoughts. He drew near and bent over her; she was obliged to look up, if it were only to bid him 'avaunt.' There was beauty still in his pale wasted features; there was earnestness, and a sort of sweetness--for he was smiling--in his hollow eyes.