The Loss of the "Vanity."

By Mary Gaunt

"The Loss of the "Vanity."" by Mary Gaunt. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 4064066402396

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Mary Gaunt

The Loss of the Vanity.

Published by Good Press, 2022

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EAN 4064066402396

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"YOU don't care. Oh! Susy, you don't care!"

But I do, she sobbed. You know, you know I care.

They were standing on a jutting headland looking away out over the Southern Ocean, and the sea, blue and calm as the sky above, stretched out before them. Behind them were the low forest-clad ranges that bounded the coast line, shutting out the lonely selection from the rest of the colony of Victoria, and the only sign of human habitation was the weather-board farmhouse the girl called home. Even that was hardly visible from where they stood, hidden as it was by the swell of the hill, and alone here with this man, alone with the sea and sky around her, with the soft south curls, with the plaintive cry of the seagulls in her ears, her nostrils, she was sorely tempted to throw off the trammels of her education, to do the thing her heart prompted her to do, to tell this man he was dearer, as she felt in her heart he was dearer, than anything on earth. But so much stood in the way. For twenty years she had lived secluded in this lonely corner of the earth, all her thoughts, her hopes, her fears bounded by the horizon of her own home and the narrow limits of the township just five miles away on the other side of the ranges. And now this sailor man, brought home by her young apprentice brother, had come into her life bringing new thoughts, new ideas, new—she whispered it to herself with a hot blush—hopes.

Five-and-twenty years ago now Angus Mackie and his wife had emigrated from the cold and stormy western isles of Scotland to this sunny South land, and they had brought with them to their new home the stern faith of the old Puritan, the rigid adherence to the old rules, the hard, straitlaced life, and so had they brought up the children that grew up around their hearth. And Susy was the eldest, Susy with the blue eyes and rose-leaf complexion and waving chestnut hair. So pretty she was, this daughter of the South, it hardly seemed possible she could be the child of the stern Puritan parents, and yet she had grown up in their ways, grave and obedient, walking in the narrow path set so straight before her, without a question and without a doubt. Never for one moment had she looked over the hedges