Miss Cayley's Adventures

By: Allen, Grant

On the day when I found myself with twopence in my pocket, I naturally made up my mind to go round the world.It was my stepfather's death that drove me to it. I had never seen my stepfather. Indeed, I never even thought of him as anything more than Colonel Watts-Morgan. I owed him nothing, except my poverty. He married my dear mother when I was a girl at school in Switzerland; and he proceeded to spend her little fortune, left at her sole disposal by my father's will, in paying his gambling debts. After that, he carried my dear mother off to Burma; and when he and the climate between them had succeeded in killing her, he made up for his appropriations at the cheapest rate by allowing me just enough to send me to Girton. So, when the Colonel died, in the year I was leaving college, I did not think it necessary to go into mourning for him. Especially as he chose the precise moment when my allowance was due, and bequeathed me nothing but his consolidated liabilities.'Of course you will teach, ' said Elsie Petheridge, when I explained my affairs to her. 'There is a good demand just now for high-school teachers.'I looked at her, aghast. 'Teach! Elsie, ' I cried. (I had come up to town to settle her in at her unfurnished lodgings.) 'Did you say teach? That's just like you dear good schoolmistresses! You go to Cambridge, and get examined till the heart and life have been examined out of you; then you say to yourselves at the end of it all, "Let me see; what am I good for now? I'm just about fit to go away and examine other people!" That's what our Principal would call "a vicious circle"-if one could ever admit there was anything vicious at all about you, dear. No, Elsie, I do not propose to teach. Nature did not cut me out for a high-school teacher. I couldn't swallow a poker if I tried for weeks. Pokers don't agree with me. Between ourselves, I am a bit of a rebel.''You are, Brownie, ' she answered, pausing in her papering, with her sleeves rolled up-they called me 'Brownie, ' partly because of my dark complexion, but partly because they could never understand me. 'We all knew that long ago.'I laid down the paste-brush and mu

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B093BC3RLB
• ISBN13: 9798743199099
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.0" x 10.0"