Beyondtherocks

The hours were composed mostly of dull or rebellious moments during the period of Theodora's engagement to Mr. Brown. From the very first she had thought it hard that she should have had to take this situation instead of Sarah or Clementine her elder step-sisters so much nearer his age than herself. To do them justice either of these ladies would have been glad to relieve her of the obligation to become Mrs. Brown but Mr. Brown thought otherwise. A young and beautiful wife was what he bargained for. To enter a family composed of three girls-two of the first family one almost thirty and a second very plain-a father with a habit of accumulating debts and obliged to live at Bruges and inexpensive foreign sea-side towns required a strong motive; and this Josiah Brown found in the deliciously rounded white velvet cheek of Theodora the third daughter to say nothing of her slender grace the grace of a young fawn and a pair of gentian-blue eyes that said things to people in the first glance.