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Chetwynd Calverley
Chetwynd Calverley / New Edition, 1877
INTRODUCTION. – THE YOUNG STEPMOTHER
I. OUSELCROFT
One summer evening, Mildred Calverley, accounted the prettiest girl in Cheshire, who had been seated in the drawing-room of her father’s house, Ouselcroft, near Daresbury, vainly trying to read, passed out from the open French window, and made her way towards two magnificent cedars of Lebanon, at the farther end of the lawn.
She was still pacing the lawn with distracted steps, when a well-known voice called out to her, and a tall figure emerged from the shade of the cedars, and Mildred uttered a cry of mingled surprise and delight.
“Is that you, Chetwynd?”
“Ay I don’t you know your own brother, Mildred?”
And as they met, they embraced each other affectionately.
“Have you been here long, Chetwynd?” she asked. “Why didn’t you come into the house?”
“I didn’t know whether I should be welcome, Mildred. Tell me how all is going on?”
“Then you have not received my letters, addressed to Bellagio and Milan? I wrote to tell you that papa is very seriously ill, and begged you to return immediately. Did you get the letters?”
“No; in fact, I have heard nothing at all from any one of you, directly nor indirectly, for more than two months.”
“How extraordinary! But how can the letters have miscarried?”