Cousin Geoffrey the old bachelor Author:Theodore Edward Hook Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: degradation, the sickening novelty of insult—the fears of trials so bitterly begun, overpowered her, and, leaning on Juliet's bosom, she burst into tears. CHA... more »PTER IY. Juliet's sympathy and spirited exertions soon recalled her mother's habitual serenity. It would have been destruction to have sunk apathetically under her calamity. Busy occupation is the best cure for grief; and fortunately Mrs. St. Aubyn had no time for quiet. She hastily dried her tears, and set about the necessary arrangements for their departure. Her husband still slept; she could not bear to awake him to discomfort and difficulty. Aided by Juliet, who was very active, and assisted by a little Irish maid, Aileen (the daughter of a former tenant), whom they meant to take with them, all their most important proceedings were completed before St. Aubyn came down to breakfast. In the cheerful and warmly affectionate greeting of Mrs. St. Aubyn, who would have recognized a wife ruined by a husband's unjustifiable extravagance?—her fortune squandered, herself and her children beggared, and about to be expatriated, in want and sorrow ? Who would have suspected that the tears she had so recently shed were tears for the sufferings and insults which his thoughtlessness and recklessness had brought upon her ? Mrs. St. Aubyn possessed none of the ambition, so common to women, of appearing suffering martyrs and injured victims—appearances which never endear them to the implied injurer, who, of course, is thus tacitly accused of barbarity towards an angel. She pictured the insolence of Mrs. Cribber in the least disagreeable colours, and tried to make her husband laugh at her vulgarity, even while she pointed out the necessity for their departing that day, and smilingly told him, with a playful kiss, in future to leave ...« less