Cousin Prudence Read Online Free Page A

of chestnut to it.  Her mouth was too generous for beauty and her nose too tip-tilted, no straight classical member.  And yet she had a vivacity and charm that made one forget that she could claim no right to be described, as Emma was described, as  a diamond of the first water.
    Emma could not contain a giggle as Prudence unfolded her length.
    One of Prudence’ eyebrows rose and Emma clapped a hand over her mouth.
    “Oh Cousin Prudence, do I pray you forgive me!” said Emma, “but here we’ve all been talking about little Cousin Prudence!”
    “Why, that is funny indeed!” said Prudence, her eyes laughing back as she smiled at Emma, “and you must be my Cousin Emma for I understand my Cousin Isabella is a matron of some seven or eight-and-twenty years; and you are surely near to my age?”
    “I am almost two-and-twenty ,” said Emma, “and you are eighteen as I understand; so closer to me in age than my sister!  You will meet Isabella in due course.  Pray, come inside; it must have been a tedious journey.”
    Prudence chuckled.
    “Well much as I should like to spin a tale of how we were pursued by a great ghostly black hound over the moors, or held up by a dozen highwaymen, or detained by the last remnants of a forgotten band of outlaws in Sherwood Forest, I fear the only thing that disturbed and delayed my journey was being run into a ditch by a young fool who was fleeing his uncle’s wrath over some matter,” she said, “and the uncle was a most disagreeable fellow into the bargain.  Though he knows what is due to his underlings,” she added, trying to be fair.
    “It sounds prodigiously unpleasant!” said Emma “Come and mee t papa and my husband, Mr George Knightley; my sister is married to his brother you see,” she explained, drawing Prudence within.
    How glad Emma was that she had listened to George’s estimation of the likelihood that Miss Blenkinsop was wealthy indeed!  From the top of her fashionable russet shako-style hat trimmed with knots of sage green ribbon on the side  to the tips of her toes clad in russet jean half-boots with the most ridiculous and delightful tassels, Prudence was the picture of fashion.  Her velvet pelisse matching the shako was frogged and braided in the military fashion as was de rigeur and her travelling gown of lustring in sage green, fashionably short to show her half-boots  and was ruched and flounced for the bottom five or six inches with knots of orange ribbons made into the semblance of flowers at the top of the flounce.
    George , as he was introduced, caught Emma looking longingly at the half-boots and resolved to buy her similar – but in a colour that would suit Emma better than russet.
     
     
    Mr Woodhouse came forward.
    “Ah you are poor Lizzie’s poor little girl” he said  “POOR Prudence!  We shall see that you lack for nothing here…. I see at least you have shoes of a sort, even though they are not dainty… we will make sure you have slippers too to wear indoors.  You need not fear any exposure to the world until you have remained with us and we have given you sufficient instruction in the proper modes of speech and how to use the plethora of cutlery as must surely confuse you… do not worry about a thing, my poor dear Prudence!”
    Prudence was dumfounded.  Whatever did this man expect?  Did he not recognise that her half-boots were of the highest kick of fashion?  Did he expect her to talk like a mill hand?  Evidently!  Well so she would!
    “Ee, Uncle Henery, that’s reet gradely,” she said in the broadest tones of Yorkshire that she could manage.
    Henry Woodhouse looked horrified.
    He had not expected that strong an accent.
    “Dear father, let me take Miss Blenkinsop’s pelisse ,” said George smoothly, drawing Prudence to one side.  He spoke rapidly in an undertone.
    “You are a naughty minx!  My father-in-law, who is inclined to pessimism, is under a misapprehension concerning your estate that he refuses to