little miss austin

Alice asked with interest: "What does America look like?"

Grant shrugged, "That depends on what you want to know. If you ask me that, I can't answer you."

"Tell me about the Revolutionary War."

"Why do you want to know this?" Grant looked at the men and women on the dance floor, "The War of Independence has only passed a dozen years, and the British may not want to mention this matter."

"Tell me. Did anyone in your family go to war?"

"Yes, one of my uncles died in Charleston. Did any of your family go to war?"

"No. You were born after the war?"

"Yes. May I ask your age?"

"why?"

"what why?"

"A gentleman shouldn't ask a lady's age rashly." Henry managed to interject.This barbarian from the New World just has no manners!he thought angrily.

"I'm going to be 17 in three weeks," Grant said, still ignoring Henry, pretending he didn't exist. "Born after the war, in Salisbury, South Carolina—I hear there's a Salisbury in England too, don't know what it's like there."

"I've been to Salisbury, Stonehenge is there, it's an interesting place."

"Then when will we go and have a look together? It's too cold now, I didn't expect England to be so cold. When is spring here? Maybe it will be more fun when spring is over."

Alice finally realizes that he seems to be dating her, are American kids so precocious?Sure enough, it is different from boys in England.

"I have to go, my mother is looking for me." She made an excuse and walked away.

But about ten minutes later, Grant Temple came over again, and very graciously brought drinks for Mrs. Austin and Alice, so Mrs. Austin questioned her for a while.

Mrs. Austin asked him how old he was, where he went to school, and when he was coming back to America.

Grant looked obedient and answered questions, "Mother is going to stay in England until Sally gets married before going back."

"Then your father wants to stay alone in Lawrence?" Lawrence is a small town in South Carolina, where the Temple family's farm, plantation and estate are located.

"Father and elder brother are at home, as well as younger sister." He introduced the family members calmly.

Mrs. Austin nodded, but still needed to be sure, "There are only 4 siblings?"

"Mother is not well."

Mrs. Austin thought about it. He has an older brother, and most of the family property will definitely be left to the eldest son. However, if Sally can be given an annuity of 3000 pounds a year, the annuity for the younger son must not be less than this. It must be 5000 pounds. , Alice's current stable annual income is 8000 to 1 pounds, and Grant's 5000 pounds is not too small, and he is considered a suitable candidate, but if he returns to the United States in the future, he will not be suitable.

So I asked in another way: "Or you can stay in the UK for a while. There are no good universities in the United States, right? You should go to Oxford University."

"That's what William told me. I'm thinking about when I'm going to Cambridge and Oxford."

Alice was slightly surprised, "Are you going to stay in England to go to university?"

"Father and elder brother are involved in family affairs, and my father very much hopes that I can go to college."

The descendants of the poor boys who left Buckinghamshire were going to go to university. This can also be said to be the original version of the American dream. The original accumulation of Temple’s family has also proceeded very quickly and smoothly, which can be called a template.

"Then you can live in England for several years." Mrs. Austin said optimistically.She quietly added another name to Alice's husband candidate list in her heart.

"You come to my house some other day, and I want to hear you talk about America. Although William and Charlie wrote me many letters, they are not Americans, they are just tourists, and they certainly don't know as much about America as you do. By the way, are your plantations full of black slaves?"

"Yes, all niggers. Are you inviting me? Mrs. Austen, may I call on you?"

"I will send invitations to your mother and sister, and invite you to come with me as a guest."

"I've heard that some plantation owners are so cruel that they kill their slaves," Alice said.

"Gee! Don't believe these rumors! A strong slave is worth a thousand dollars, and no normal planter would kill a slave for no reason, unless the slave escaped. But truth be told, a A good plantation owner should let his slaves eat well and live well, so as to ensure that they will not be lazy."

A lady next to him interjected, "I tell you, those slaves are too lazy! They don't know how to be grateful, don't believe in God, and they were born to be slaves."

Alice looked sideways.There were many black slaves in England in the early years, but the Austin family never used black slaves.Servants are hired, and they have a contractual relationship with their masters, and both parties can terminate the contract; slaves sell themselves without personal rights, and are not even counted as "population", and it is impossible to terminate the business relationship with their masters.It was not until June 1772 that the Supreme Court of England and Wales announced that black slaves also had personal rights, and that they were not allowed to be traded and become slaves.

Mr. Hastings had no black slaves in his house, but he had servants brought back from India.Oliver said they had black menial laborers at their home in Devon.

The set of "white supremacy" is still very marketable in the UK and is the mainstream.Because of their religious background, the Austin family believes that all races should be equal regardless of skin color, but they just think that people should not be slaves, and they should be divided into three, six, and nine classes. Blacks and Indians are dwarves, and they can only wait on the ground floor.

A few days later, Mrs. Temple brought Sally and Grant to visit.

Austin's house is not as large as Baron Kingsley's villa. It is very trendy and comfortable. There are no antiques and it is not very English, but the overall feeling is very good.

In the space of a cup of tea, Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Austen were almost confiding in each other.

Baroness Kingsley is a beauty, but a lady who likes to put on aristocratic airs. Mrs. Temple always feels that she cannot have any common language with her mother-in-law, and always feels that the baroness looks down on the Temple family.Fortunately, William and Sally will not live with their parents after they get married. It is impossible for William to stay under the watchful eye of his parents and be restrained.Mrs. Temple found that the Baroness and his wife doted on their youngest son very much. In fact, they were not satisfied with the family background of Temple's family, but they still agreed to William's marriage, which was not just about the power of money.

When Mrs. Temple was in the United States, she always thought that her plantation was big enough. With the addition of the farm, the annual income was very considerable. She regarded herself as a big landlord and rich man in South Carolina. Looking at the very low-key Austin family, the annual income is also in the tens of thousands - Mrs. Austin boasted cleverly, but Mrs. Temple didn't know why, so she took it seriously.

Miss Big Austin is a very typical British lady, well-bred, quiet and well-behaved, and because she is never married and has never given birth, she actually looks quite young, and no one will believe that she is 25 or 6 years old.Mrs. Temple unexpectedly discovered that Miss Austen's dress looked better than that of the prom that day—it was just changed from a dark color to a bright light color, and her whole body suddenly seemed to be brightened by the sun.

Grant was also very surprised. That day he thought that Miss Big Austen was a weird old maid from England. She was dressed in ugly and gray clothes, which was not eye-catching at all. He didn't expect her to be dressed normally, and she looked pretty—of course not as good as that one. Little Miss Austin.

Alice is also very beautiful in what she is wearing today, a light pink long-sleeved home dress, a small square collar, and a not-so-thin gold necklace with a thumb-sized yellow gemstone pendant.

Her skin is fair, she looks good no matter what color she wears, sitting there dignifiedly, no matter how you look at it, she looks good.

Grant sat for less than half an hour. Mrs. Temple understood his son's thoughts very well and asked if Miss Alice could take Grant out for a walk.

Just after a light snowfall, the ground is still covered with the remnant snow of the previous snow, and then covered with a thin layer of snow. The layer of snow under the woods not far away has not yet melted. Looking from a distance, there is a sense of winter. The bleak mood.

"I haven't seen snow yet," Grant rubbed his hands, "and neither has Sally."

"Are you cold?" Alice was fully armed, wearing a long wool coat, a wool scarf covering her head and half of her face, a rabbit fur muff, and thick leather shoes trimmed with rabbit fur. , wearing pattens.

Grant had no pattens, and Alice sent Sidney to find a pair of Reverend George's pattens for him to put on over his leather shoes.

He didn't wear much, a dark navy blue woolen mid-length coat, and he didn't wear a scarf.

"Fortunately, it's not too cold." He looked at Alice and felt that she had wrapped herself too tightly, so he said with a smile, "Do you always go out like this in winter?"

"Of course you don't need to wear too much to ride in a carriage, but," she stomped her feet, "if you stay in England to go to university, you will have the opportunity to see the winter in England in the future. There is no need to freeze yourself now."

"Don't you like winter?"

"I like winter, but I don't like it being too cold." She hurried back before even walking a hundred yards, "Let's go back inside, we can play pool, can you play pool?"

"Can play. Do you like to play pool?"

"It's okay, you're good at billiards, and you're good at math, are you okay?" Alice turned around and walked back.

"Bibi will know it just by looking at it. By the way," Grant turned and walked back, "Do you want to bet something?"

"My father was a pastor."

"so?"

"So you can't bet openly at home."

Grant suddenly said, "Okay, I understand. How about it, if I score two goals in a row, I can ask you a question."

"No, you are not allowed to ask me questions." Get used to him!

At the beginning of December, the boys all went on vacation one after another.

Oliver, Cambridge Year [-]; Julian, Cambridge Year [-]; Evan Holmes, Oxford Year [-]; Ivo Gordon, Oxford Year [-]; George Byron, Harrow Senior.

Cambridge and Oxford are about the same distance from London, and Cambridge is a little farther; Byron will graduate in one semester and has decided to go to Cambridge University to continue his higher education.

There are other institutions of higher learning in London, such as Lincoln's Inn, Middle Temple, Temple, and Gray's Inn. The Royal College of Medicine is the first professional medical school in the UK, but the children of nobles do not study any practical majors. For example, Oliver is studying history, Julian is studying literature, Evangelical philosophy, Ivo is studying classical literature (ancient Greece, ancient Rome), Byron is going to study literature and history, Austin's brothers James and Henry are studying Both literature and theology.

Alice has studied the majors of the two universities, and found that there are not many practical majors, and many later generations have no majors, but they all have medical majors, but the children of the nobles will basically not choose those majors that can be used to find jobs.In other words, the children of nobles and gentry do not need to consider work, so many students choose history, literature, and philosophy majors.

Archaeology, physics, biology, botany, political science, and humanities are still in their infancy and are far from perfect. Oriental studies, geography, and astronomy are still popular. Architecture and architectural history, fine arts and fine arts History is tepid, and oddly enough, no history of music.

This is probably related to the general discrimination against musicians in continental Europe. Musicians are just "entertainers", and their social status may only be slightly higher than that of famous actors in the theater. Gentlemen don't need to learn musical instruments, they only need to be able to appreciate them. Those who are not in the mainstream, once they get paid to perform with musical instruments, become "inferior people", because that is considered "professional".

Just like Mozart, known as the "music prodigy", he was once hired to teach music to 5-year-old William Beckford. At that time, Mozart was only a 9-year-old child. " fate, because music is his profession rather than a hobby.

Oliver and Ivo gave her the course schedules and reading lists of the literature majors of the two universities. William Beckford ticked off the reading lists for her. Some books are not necessary to read, but some books can still be read.And sent people to give her a lot of books; Alice also asked Henry to help her find the books she needed in bookstores, second-hand bookstores, and private libraries in London. Austin's library is full of books.

Ivo Gordon looked at the books piled on the floor in the library in amazement, "You really got a lot of books!" Calculated based on the price of a book of 1 to 2 pounds, 500 books are worth 500 to 1000 pounds. [-] pounds, the collection of books can be inherited as a family property, of course, there are also cases where the prodigal son does not read the books and sells the collection, or moves from a big house to a small one, and has to sell part of the collection. This is how the books in the second-hand bookstore come. of.

Alice likes to go to second-hand bookstores to search for books, and sometimes she can really find one or two very good old books.

"Can you read it all?" Byron asked suspiciously.

"Try to watch it, you can always finish it."

"What have you been writing lately?" Oliver asked.

"Write a long novel, and when finished, there will be about 400 pages."

Oliver was quite surprised, "It's so long! How long do you have to write?"

"5 months."

Ivo raised his eyebrows, "So fast!" Most of the current novels are only 10 to 20 words, calculated based on 1 words per page, that is, more than 1000 pages to 100 pages, usually it takes a long time to write, and it takes a long time to write a few years. normal.

"Mr. Beckford said that the writing process should not be delayed too long. It can be revised after it is finished, but it is best to write continuously to maintain the creative passion. He wrote "History of the Vasak Caliphate" very quickly, it only took 4 months .”

Regarding the rumors that Beckford created "History of the Vasak Caliphate", he himself said that he spent 3 days and 2 pages to conceive the outline, and then spent 4 months writing it in French. When the English version was published, he translated it in English Revised once.Jane's writing is also very fast. After writing half of "Pride and Prejudice", it was overhauled and turned into a third person, which is equivalent to rewriting it. It took less than a year and the manuscript has more than 200 pages.

Alice plans to finish writing 5 words in 40 months, which is actually quite fast. She rarely revises, at most, she revises some parts that are not consistent. It will be finished in more than half a year.

They all know that Alice is writing novels, and in this era when writing novels is still generally considered to be a "non-job", their attitudes are very progressive. No one thinks that Alice should be a little lady, embroidering flowers and drinking tea every day. They actually separated her from the other girls and didn't treat her like any other normal girl.

In Byron's words, there are too many ordinary girls, and there must be a different girl to be more interesting.

"What story are you going to write this time?" Byron asked enthusiastically, "I've been following your "England Horror Stories", did Mr. Beckford agree with you to use the real place name 'Fengshan Manor'? "

"Agreed, he doesn't care how I wrote it, and he thinks my writing is very good." Alice was complacent.

Oliver didn't think it was strange. Beckford was such a person with a weird temperament, but once he got his temper right, he would be easy to speak and his thinking was very progressive. He didn't think there was anything wrong with being Alice's writing instructor.

Ivo rummaged to the side, "Let's go out, we don't want to spend a day in the library, do we? Alice, I heard that there is a boy from America who often visits you."

"Who did you hear?"

"I don't want to tell you! Anyway, I will always know." Ivo had a smug expression.

"Then go out, you must always stay in the library, mother will say that you may be a little weird. Want pudding? My sister makes a lot of pudding, and we pickle some raspberry jam in the summer. It's not very sweet, it's ok It's delicious to pour raspberry jam on the pudding." Alice said as she walked out of the library.

Oliver subtly walked two steps behind her, and Ivo walked beside her, letting her go first when going out.Byron was the last to leave the library.

"Is there any ice?" Ivo asked.

"Yes, tell Jacob to dig some ice cubes in the basement later. It's a pity that the ice cubes can't be crushed into fine shards. In summer, the shards can be served with watermelon juice or orange juice, apple juice, and grape juice. Call it cool and cool."

"Is there no way to do it? How about cutting a big block of ice and scraping it into shavings with a knife?"

The two were eagerly discussing food.

Oliver walked behind the two of them, thinking that they always discussed food when they were together. Ivo and Alice had a lot to talk about, but Ivo didn't see her too often.

Boys grow up, become sensitive to certain things, and become proactive.Ivo always took advantage of the fact that they were close in age, and consciously or unconsciously got very close to Alice, probably because Alice had known them since childhood and didn't know how to keep a certain physical distance.In this era, because people's activities were limited, many marriages were concluded in familiar families. For example, the father of Cathy's deceased fiancé was a classmate of Oxford University with Pastor George; James' second wife Martha Lloyd's father, the Reverend Lloyd, was also an Oxford classmate of the Reverend George.

As boys come of age, it is common practice for their parents to start looking for suitable wives for them in familiar families.Boys also began to notice suitable girls and began to yearn for love.The usual way is to visit your sweetheart at home. Accompanied by her family, you can go out with her for a walk, outing, etc. You can talk, but don't want to kiss. The strict and rigid family doesn't even allow you to correspond with each other unless you're engaged.

Their dealings with Alice ignored all of this.

They call each other by their Christian names, unless they are in front of each other's parents, they only use their surnames; they often write letters, Oliver writes her at least once a week, and Ivo writes as many as 2 or 3 letters a week.Byron only wrote to her when he had to.And Julian and Evan, two boys who are not liked by Alice, write a letter to her almost a month.

Julian's character remained unchanged, and he was still arrogant in the letter, ordering her not to write to Oliver or play with him. Alice only opened the first letter, but she was still puzzled to see him, and the rest of the letters were not opened. When he saw Oliver, he told him to take Julian's letter away, so Oliver finally saw what his inexplicable brother had said to Alice in the letter.

Evan's letters are very interesting. At the beginning of each letter, there is a review of "England Horror Stories". It is like writing a small essay, picky about logic or grammar, and even picky words, so as to be a teacher, or God knows What the hell was he thinking.The second half of the letter is just some trifles, without a central idea, it's probably just writing wherever I think of it.

Alice read Evan's letter and gave it to Oliver to take away.She never wrote back to Julian or Evan.

As for hanging out together, the Austins have had no problem with it for several years since they were teenagers, as long as Cathy can watch from the sidelines.

But now, there is one more boy who came to play with Alice.

The author has something to say:

*The American War of Independence took place from 1775 to 1783. At that time, the British colonies in North America, except Canada, had 13 colonies in the United States, all of which were concentrated on the east coast. The west of the Mississippi River was still a large "undiscovered" land at that time. land.

*The famous "Boston Tea Party" occurred in 1773. At that time, the American colonies sold "private tea" that had not been handled by the British East India Company. The tea sold by the East India Company was all Chinese tea and dumped to the American colonies. The accumulation of tea caused dissatisfaction among local merchants in the colonies, coupled with dissatisfaction with the tax rates and military high pressure of the British local government, which triggered the resistance of the colonial people for independence.After that, the American people switched to drinking coffee.

*Boys have their own ideas.Strongly do not recommend buying shares.