Oh, but I wouldn’t want to ruin the wrapping.įiona shrugged. What did you bring?įiona held up a gaily painted box tied with a silver cord.
Miranda turned to see Fiona Bennet standing before her, prettily dressed in a white frock with a pink sash. What did you bring Olivia for her birthday, Miranda? Miranda watched the commotion for a minute or so, quite content to be in her usual spot as an observer, until, out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone approaching. She slipped out of the room, leaving Miranda near the doorway.
And the furniture.Īll the same, I had best go do something about it. She pursed her lips otherwise, she’d smile. Miranda glanced over at William Evans, who let out a war cry and cannonballed onto the sofa. I don’t see how she will have time to object to a little mud on your face when she’s got it all over the carpet. She quite abhors dirt, and I quite abhor listening to her tell me how much she abhors it. Olivia let out a dramatically weary sigh. You’ve mud on your cheek, Livvy, Miranda said, reaching out to wipe it away. It was for this reason that Lady Rudland let out a most unladylike groan eighteen urchins were gleefully tramping mud through her sitting room after the twins’ party in the garden was disrupted by rain. They had become quite an inseparable threesome and rarely bothered to play with the other children in the area, most of whom lived nearly an hour’s ride away.īut a dozen or so times a year, and especially on birthdays, all the children of the local nobility and gentry gathered together. Miranda’s home was quite close to Haverbreaks, the Rudlands’ ancestral home near Ambleside, in the Lake District of Cumberland, and she had always shared lessons with Olivia and Winston when they were in residence. Just such an unpleasant incident occurred at the eleventh birthday party of Lady Olivia and the Honorable Winston Bevelstoke, twin children of the Earl and Countess of Rudland. Children have a way of finding these things out, usually from other children. And although she was only ten, she knew that in this regard she was considered inferior to most of the other little girls who lived nearby.
Unfortunately for Miranda, the society into which she was born placed great stock on female appearance. Her mother often remarked that she positively loped around the house. Her hair was brown-lamentably-as were her eyes and her legs, which were uncommonly long, refused to learn anything that could be remotely called grace. At the age of ten, Miss Miranda Cheever showed no signs of Great Beauty.
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