"Wilkie Collins - I Say No" - читать интересную книгу автора (Collins Wilkie)

opportunity of repeating it:
"Never mind the weather," she said. "Tell me about your father and mother. Are
they both alive?"
Emily's reply only related to one of her parents.
"My mother died before I was old enough to feel my loss."
"And your father?"
Emily referred to another relative--her father's sister. "Since I have grown
up," she proceeded, "my good aunt has been a second mother to me. My story is,
in one respect, the reverse of yours. You are unexpectedly rich; and I am
unexpectedly poor. My aunt's fortune was to have been my fortune, if I outlived
her. She has been ruined by the failure of a bank. In her old age, she must live
on an income of two hundred a year--and I must get my own living when I leave
school."
"Surely your father can help you?" Francine persisted.
"His property is landed property." Her voice faltered, as she referred to him,
even in that indirect manner. "It is entailed; his nearest male relative
inherits it."
The delicacy which is easily discouraged was not one of the weaknesses in the
nature of Francine.
"Do I understand that your father is dead?" she asked.
Our thick-skinned fellow-creatures have the rest of us at their mercy: only give
them time, and they carry their point in the end. In sad subdued tones--telling
of deeply-rooted reserves of feeling, seldom revealed to strangers--Emily
yielded at last.
"Yes," she said, "my father is dead."
"Long ago?"
"Some people might think it long ago. I was very fond of my father. It's nearly
four years since he died, and my heart still aches when I think of him. I'm not
easily depressed by troubles, Miss de Sor. But his death was sudden--he was in
his grave when I first heard of it--and-- Oh, he was so good to me; he was so
good to me!"
The gay high-spirited little creature who took the lead among them all--who was
the life and soul of the school--hid her face in her hands, and burst out
crying.
Startled and--to do her justice--ashamed, Francine attempted to make excuses.
Emily's generous nature passed over the cruel persistency that had tortured her.
"No no; I have nothing to forgive. It isn't your fault. Other girls have not
mothers and brothers and sisters--and get reconciled to such a loss as mine.
Don't make excuses."
"Yes, but I want you to know that I feel for you," Francine insisted, without
the slightest approach to sympathy in face, voice, or manner. "When my uncle
died, and left us all the money, papa was much shocked. He trusted to time to
help him."
"Time has been long about it with me, Francine. I am afraid there is something
perverse in my nature; the hope of meeting again in a better world seems so
faint and so far away. No more of it now! Let us talk of that good creature who
is asleep on the other side of you. Did I tell you that I must earn my own bread
when I leave school? Well, Cecilia has written home and found an employment for
me. Not a situation as governess--something quite out of the common way. You
shall hear all about it."