In Regency England Mrs Thorne's School for Young Ladies is about to close due to the death of young Clarissa's mother a year ago.This leaves eighteen-year-old Clarissa Thorne and her three school mistress friends no option but to return to the bosom of their families as despised 'poor relations' - at everyone's beck and call for all their lives.
But Clarissa has just inherited Ashcroft , a large crumbling estate, and she offers her companions an escape - run away with her to a life of independence and adventure. They must put the estate to rights with little money and less experience. Can sensible Miss Micklethwaite, aging romantic Miss Appleby and the beautiful Miss Oriana Petersham escape their fate? To keep the vivacious, impulsive Clarissa in check they must at least try.
However, their relatives may have other plans.
Meeting the Earl of Grandiston and his companion (a devotee of the divine Oriana) on the road sets hilarious events in motion. Perhaps to adventure the ladies must add romance...
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Looking down upon the curate’s thinning hair from her vantage point of the library chair, Miss Clarissa Thorne felt herself to have borne enough.
‘Do please rise, Mr Peterkin. I would myself if you hadn’t quite caught yourself in my skirts,’ she said tartly. She was quite a young lady, about eighteen summers, but with a determined chin set in a face surrounded by mousy ringlets caught up carelessly in a rather tattered ribbon. She wore a plainly cut black muslin, as befitted her mourning state. She might have been passably pretty had she not had a quite unladylike air of certainty in her large grey eyes.
The Reverend Mr Peterkin rose at once and was about to deliver himself of a lecture as to the tones young ladies should adopt when speaking to members of the clergy, when he recollected that this would not forward his case.
‘Indeed, Miss Thorne, it is only my sincere intention to throw myself at your feet, to act as your solace, your comforter in this harsh world that caused me to…’ But his companion had already pulled a decrepit bell chain and was holding out her hand to bid him farewell in an unmistakable fashion.
‘I am obliged to you for your charitable sentiments, sir, but you have now received your answer and must take your leave.’
As Mr Peterkin grasped her hand automatically, he felt he was losing control of the situation. He gulped and said, ‘But Miss Thorne, you cannot have considered your position, your parents both dead … you need a man to guide you …’
She withdrew her hand and looked past him at her superior servant.
‘Ah, Sullivan, here is Mr Peterkin taking his leave of us, please show him out,’ she said, with the utmost cheerfulness.
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Italian
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Maria Giulia Cecchini and Elisa Pardini
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