No Name by Wilkie Collins (good books for 7th graders TXT) 📕

attempt to be too familiar with you? I have always been accustomed to check her, in this respect. She has never been permitted to call me anything but ‘Captain’; and on the rare occasions since our union, when circumstances may have obliged her to address me by letter, her opening form of salutation has been rigidly restricted to ‘Dear Sir.’ Accept these trifling domestic particulars as suggesting hints which may be useful to you in managing Mrs. Wragge; and believe me, in anxious expectation of hearing from you again,

“Devotedly yours,

“Horatio Wragge.”

III From Norah to Magdalen

[Forwarded, with the two letters that follow it, from the Post-office, Birmingham.]

“Westmoreland House, Kensington, July 1st.

“My Dearest Magdalen⁠—When you write next (and pray write soon!) address your letter to me at Miss Garth’s. I have left my situation; and some little time may elapse before I find another.

“Now it is all over I may acknowledge to you, my darling, that I was not happy. I tried hard to win the affection of the two little girls I had to teach; but they seemed, I am sure I can’t tell why, to dislike me from the first. Their mother I have no reason to complain of. But their grandmother, who was really the ruling power in the house, made my life very hard to me. My inexperience in teaching was a constant subject of remark with her; and my difficulties with the children were always visited on me as if they had been entirely of my own making. I tell you this, so that you may not suppose I regret having left my situation. Far from it, my love⁠—I am glad to be out of the house.

“I have saved a little money, Magdalen; and I should so like to spend it in staying a few days with you. My heart aches for a sight of my sister; my ears are weary for the sound of her voice. A word from you telling me where we can meet, is all I want. Think of it⁠—pray think of it.

“Don’t suppose I am discouraged by this first check. There are many kind people in the world; and some of them may employ me next time. The way to happiness is often very hard to find; harder, I almost think, for women than for men. But if we only try patiently, and try long enough, we reach it at last⁠—in heaven, if not on earth. I think my way now is the way which leads to seeing you again. Don’t forget that, my love, the next time you think of

“Norah.”

IV From Miss Garth to Magdalen

“Westmoreland House, July 1st.

“My Dear Magdalen⁠—You have no useless remonstrances to apprehend at the sight of my handwriting. My only object in this letter is to tell you something which I know your sister will not tell you of her own accord. She is entirely ignorant that I am writing to you. Keep her in ignorance, if you wish to spare her unnecessary anxiety, and me unnecessary distress.

“Norah’s letter, no doubt, tells you that she has left her situation. I feel it my painful duty to add that she has left it on your account.

“The matter occurred in this manner. Messrs. Wyatt, Pendril, and Gwilt are the solicitors of the gentleman in whose family Norah was employed. The life which you have chosen for yourself was known as long ago as December last to all the partners. You were discovered performing in public at Derby by the person who had been employed to trace you at York; and that discovery was communicated by Mr. Wyatt to Norah’s employer a few days since, in reply to direct inquiries about you on that gentleman’s part. His wife and his mother (who lives with him) had expressly desired that he would make those inquiries; their doubts having been aroused by Norah’s evasive answers when they questioned her about her sister. You know Norah too well to blame her for this. Evasion was the only escape your present life had left her, from telling a downright falsehood.

“That same day, the two ladies of the family, the elder and the younger, sent for your sister, and told her they had discovered that you were a public performer, roaming from place to place in the country under an assumed name. They were just enough not to blame Norah for this; they were just enough to acknowledge that her conduct had been as irreproachable as I had guaranteed it should be when I got her the situation. But, at the same time, they made it a positive condition of her continuing in their employment that she should never permit you to visit her at their house, or to meet her and walk out with her when she was in attendance on the children. Your sister⁠—who has patiently borne all hardships that fell on herself⁠—instantly resented the slur cast on you. She gave her employers warning on the spot. High words followed, and she left the house that evening.

“I have no wish to distress you by representing the loss of this situation in the light of a disaster. Norah was not so happy in it as I had hoped and believed she would be. It was impossible for me to know beforehand that the children were sullen and intractable, or that the husband’s mother was accustomed to make her domineering disposition felt by everyone in the house. I will readily admit that Norah is well out of this situation. But the harm does not stop here. For all you and I know to the contrary, the harm may go on. What has happened in this situation may happen in another. Your way of life, however pure your conduct may be⁠—and I will do you the justice to believe it pure⁠—is a suspicious way of life to all respectable people. I have lived long enough