Augusta Huiell Seaman

Summary

Augusta Huiell Seaman Tranquillity House — Chapter 1 (1923)

Old Beulah, the colored cook in the kitchen, simply adored us, especially Connie, who could always wheedle a piece of hot gingerbread from her, no matter how cranky she was; and Beulah was (and still is) desperately cross at times.
Tomkins too, who is Mr. Benham’s valet and butler, would do anything in the world for us. But we neither of us ever liked Mr. Cookson, the secretary, a long, lanky man, and always grouchy, who acted as if he was too busy to notice us—not that we wanted him to, for we detested him so that we rarely came to the house when he was about.
Source: Wikisource

Augusta Huiell Seaman Tranquillity House — Chapter 1 (1923)

He built the house and laid out the grounds, and his descendants have lived here ever since. Mr. Benham feels it a great pity that when he dies there will be no descendants to leave it to, as he is the last of them all and has never married.
One of the rooms is a great library, with shelves of books reaching clear to the ceiling, and here Connie and I have browsed all our lives. We hardly needed to belong to the circulating library in the village, as we could find almost everything we wanted here. All over the house are portraits of his Quaker ancestors, most of them in the Friends’ costume.
Source: Wikisource

Augusta Huiell Seaman Tranquillity House — Chapter 1 (1923)

As we grew older, we almost preferred it to our own home, dear as that always is and will be. But we found we could study better in Uncle Benham's library, where everything was so quiet (especially after Baby Ralph grew old enough to make our house so rackety!) , and Uncle Benham was always at leisure to help us over the hard places in our arithmetic, and, later, in our Latin and algebra.
For a week before Connie had her accident, Uncle Benham had been confined to his room with a severe cold and rheumatism.
Source: Wikisource

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