England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Schools -- Fiction; Teenage girls -- Fiction
But though the two old frights were so much alike in appearance, they
never agreed upon any point; and the parishioners had a sad time of it
with first one and then the other. They were always leaving books for
the poor people's reading, and both had their peculiar ideas upon the
subject of what was suitable. They considered that they knew exactly
what every one ought to read, and what every one else ought to read was
just the very reverse of what they ought to read themselves. But there,
they do not stand alone in that way, as publishers well know when they
bring out so many works of a kind that they are sure customers will
buy--not to read, but to give away--very good books, of course.
It was all very well to call them the giraffes, and that did very well
for their height; but as soon as I found out how one was all for one
way, and the other immediately opposed to her sister, declaring she was
all wrong, I christened them--the Doxies--Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. It
was very dreadful--wasn't it?--and unladylike, and so on; but it did
seem to fit, and all the girls took it up and enjoyed it; only that
odious Celia Blang must tell Miss Furness, and Miss Furness must tell
Mrs Blunt, and then of course there was a terrible hubbub, and I was
told that it was profane in one sense, bad taste in another, and
disgusting language in another; for the word "doxy" was one that no lady
should ever bring her lips to utter. When if I did not make worse of
it--I mean in my own conscience--by telling a most outrageous story, and
saying I was sorry, when I wasn't a bit.
Oh, the visitors! I was sick of them; for it was just as if we girls
were kept to show. I used to call the place Mrs Blunt's Menagerie, and
got into a scrape about that; for everything I said was carried to the
principal--not that I cared, only it made me tell those stories, and say
I was sorry when I was not.
The curate and his poor unfortunate wife came sometimes. A
curious-looking couple they were, too, who seemed as if they had found
matrimony a mistake, and did not approve of it; for they always talked
in a quiet, subdued way, and walked as far apart from one another as
they could.
The curate had not much to say for himself; but he made the best he
could of it, and stretched his words out a tremendous length, saying
pa-a-ast and la-a-ast; so that when he said the word everlasting in the
service, it was perfectly terrible, and you stared at him in dismay, as
if there really never would be an end to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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