"Allen, Grant - Miss Cayley's Adventures 05 - The Adenture of the Impromptu Mountaineer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Grant)

which, by the way, I want a tenant, if you happen
to know of one: and when it's left empty for a
month or two----'

'Perhaps it would do for me?' Mrs. Evelegh
suggested, jumping at it. 'I'm looking out for a
furnished house for the summer, within easy reach
of Portsmouth and London, for myself and Oliver.'

Lady Georgina seized her arm, with a face of
blank horror. 'My dear,' she cried. 'For you! I
wouldn't dream of letting it to you. A nasty,
damp, cold, unwholesome house, on stiff clay soil,
with detestable drains, in the deadliest part of
the Weald of Surrey,--why, you and your boy would
catch your deaths of rheumatism.'

'Is it the one I saw advertised in the _Times_
this morning, I wonder?' Mrs. Evelegh inquired in a
placid voice. '"Charming furnished house on
Holmesdale Common; six bedrooms, four reception-
rooms; splendid views; pure air; picturesque
surroundings; exceptionally situated." I thought
of writing about it.'

'That's it!' Lady Georgina exclaimed, with a
demonstrative wave of her hand. I drew up the
advertisement myself. Exceptionally situated! I
should just think it was! Why, my dear, I wouldn't
let you rent the place for worlds; a horrid, poky
little hole, stuck down in the bottom of a boggy
hollow, as damp as Devonshire, with the paper
peeling off the walls, so that I had to take my
choice between giving it up myself ten years ago,
or removing to the cemetery; and I've let it ever
since to City men with large families. Nothing
would induce me to allow you and your boy to expose
yourself to such risks.' For Lady Georgina had
taken quite a fancy to Mrs. Evelegh. 'But what I
was just going to say was this: you can't shut your
house up; it'll all go mouldy. Houses always go
mouldy, shut up in summer. And you can't leave it
to your servants; I know the baggages; no
conscience--no conscience; they'll ask their entire
families to come and stop with them en bloc, and
turn your place into a perfect piggery. Why, when
I went away from my house in town one autumn,
didn't I leave a policeman and his wife in charge--
a most respectable man--only he happened to be an
Irishman. And what was the consequence? My dear,