Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. BREAKING MOORINGS. HAD there been any relatives in town so situated as to be able to give the girl the advantages of society, Mrs. Braddington would not have hesitated to send Blanche from her; but, unfortunately, under the circumstances, the family connection was very limited, her husband's only near relatives being an uncle and aunt, aged and feeble; while on her side there was no one but Mrs. Beverley, her mother's sister, and her home was at Cliff Haven. Aunt Beverley was a large-hearted, motherly woman; but Mrs. Braddington, until very lately, had not cared to cultivate her acquaintance, for aunt Beverley after her husband's death, finding herself under the necessity of doing something for her own support, had disgraced the family, in her niece's estimation, by opening a dressmaking and millinery establishment. Even the hats and bonnets, made and trimmed in the latest style, sent semi-yearly to herself and the girls, failed to heal her wounded pride. But recently Mrs. Beverley had retired from business, and with the fruits of her ten years' toil had bought a pleasant home at Cliff Haven, a seaport town sometwelve miles from Crngue; and, Cliff Haven being a favorite summer resort, Mrs. Braddington was no longer indifferent to her aunt's friendship. Consequently when, on the morning after the beach-plum- ming expedition, Blanche demurely proposed a visit to Cliff Haven, she met with no opposition from her mother, except on the ground that she had not a suitable outfit, ? a statement to which the girl mentally assented as being only too true; and even her mother's reiterated assurance that aunt Beverley, for her own sake, would see to it that she was properly equipped, did not reconcile her to the thought of starting on her journey so poorly apparelled. She ...