The Pillars of the House; or, Under Wode, Under Rode Book

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: independent will and way of his own, and shown that he was capable of carrying it out. It was five years since Mr. Underwood's prediction that he would find the attempt keeping house for such a family an utter failure, and would have to fall back on help he had not deserved : and here he was, without having made one demand, a partner in the business, and with so small a fraction of the family apparent, that there was no air of oppression, no complaint, even though Thomas himself had returned on his hands both those of whom he had meant to relieve him. No wonder, then, that without intending it, his manner to Felix was not that of patron, but of equal?of kinsman to kinsman, not of rich man to struggling youth. And Felix, as he sat in the great handsome dining-room, could not help being amused at all the state that had followed one man and his daughter for one dinner in their own house : the courses, and the silver, and the perplexing family of wine-glasses beside every plate, and all with the Underwood rood and its motto shining on him?whether on the servant's buttons, on the panels of the oak-wainscotted hall, and the very china from which he ate his dinner. Nothing interested Mr. Underwood more than the account of the visit to Vale Leston ; and warming up under the influence of dinner, he talked much of the old times there, and with much disparagement of the two present Fulberts ; but Felix was startled to find that he regarded himself as next in the succession. ' If you could only have gone into the Church, Felix, I could have given you the Vicarage. Or is not one of your brothers to be a parson ?' ' Yes, Sir?Clement,' said Felix, smiling, but feeling a sense of injury that revealed to him how much more he must be reckoning on the chances than he had supposed himself...Read More