Three Margarets
- Downloads
- 100+
- First published
- 1897
- Pages
- 133
About this book
One summer at Fernley House on Long Island, three first cousins arrive who are all named Margaret Montfort, each holding a word-for-word identical invitation from an uncle none of them has ever met. Margaret is seventeen, bookish and lately orphaned. Peggy grew up with nine brothers and sisters on a Western farm and has no use for parlor manners. Rita comes from Havana, proud of her Spanish mother and fierce about Cuba Libre, where her brother is fighting. The three dislike each other on sight, and Richards lets that stand until a peat bog nearly swallows one of them and the least polished cousin goes out flat on her face to drag her back. Old family papers, a ghost the house is supposed to have, and a midnight plan to reach Cuba fill the rest of the season.
From the opening pages
The rain was falling fast. It was a pleasant summer rain that plashed gently on the leaves of the great elms and locusts, and tinkled musically in the roadside puddles. Less musical was its sound as it drummed on the top of the great landau which was rolling along the avenue leading to Fernley House; but the occupants of the carriage paid little attention to it, each being buried in her own thoughts. The night was dark, and the carriage-lamps threw an uncertain gleam on the three figures leaning back in their corners, muffled and silent. The avenue was long,—interminably long, it seemed to one of the three travellers; and finally the silence so oppressed her that she determined to conquer her shyness and break it.
"What a very long avenue!" she said, speaking in a low, sweet voice.
There was no reply. She hesitated a moment, and then added timidly, "Don't you think that, as we are cousins, we might introduce ourselves and make acquaintance? My name is Margaret Montfort."
"Why, so is mine!" exclaimed the traveller opposite her. "And mine!" added the third, from the further corner.
The voice of the second speaker sounded as if it might be hearty, and as if only awkwardness gave it a sullen tone. The third spoke with a soft, languid utterance and the faintest shade of a foreign accent.
"How strange!" exclaimed the first Margaret Montfort. "Of course I knew that we had the same surname, as our fathers were brothers; but that we should all three be named—and yet it is not strange, after all!" she added. "Our grandmother was Margaret, and it was natural that we should be given her name. But how shall we manage? We cannot say First, Second, and Third Margaret, as they do on the stage."
Contents
About the author
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Book facts
- First published
- 1897
- Reading time
- About 3 hours
- Pages
- 133
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Childrens Classics
- Formats
- PDF, EPUB, Read online