Godey's Lady's Book - Fiction

Author: Alice B. Neal

Title: Motes and Beams

Date: August 1855

Volume/Page: v51 p129


Synopsis:

Laura, only grandchild of Mrs. Henry, is leaving her grandmother who has raised her, to live with the Goulds in the city, ostensibly for music lessons and "finishing." However, her grandmother also wishes her to gain more "worldly experience." Laura who c an "tell in a minute" what people are like, immediately says they are a delightful family. Six months later she returns home complaining they are all selfish. Her grandmother draws her out, finds that Laura's reasoning is lees than reasonable, and asks he r to reconsider her conclusions.

"There was a wedding in the morning-room of Mrs. Henry's fine old country-house just two years from that time; and as Laura was the bride, and George Gould the groom, we may conclude that she had lost faith in "love at first sight," and that she had chang ed her mind again, or perhaps, with Mrs. Malaprop, they considered it "safest to commence with a little aversion."


Written and copyright by Hope Greenberg. 11/24/95.