Читать книгу Lover and Husband. A Novel онлайн

14 страница из 136

I think there is very little more to tell of Marion’s early life. Simple and uneventful enough it had been, and with but few of what are usually considered young girls’ special privileges and pleasures. But, on the whole, by no means an unwholesome training for a rich and vigorous nature, though it might have crushed and stunted a poorer one. Such society as, since she grew to womanhood, she had seen at her father’s house, had been almost confined to that of the few friends whom he now and then invited to a somewhat ponderous dinner. Clever men, all of them, in their different ways; interested, if not absorbed, in topics, much of which Marion hardly understood, but from which, not being a common-place young lady, her quick intelligence led her to glean much material for quiet thought and speculation, which certainly did her no harm, and probably more good than the “finishing” touches she would at this period have been undergoing, had her education been more in accordance with prescribed rules.