Edna Browning; $b or, the Leighton homestead. A novelHolmes, Mary Jane
General
Edna Browning; $b or, the Leighton homestead. A novel
Holmes, Mary Jane
American fiction -- 19th century
There were four of them, and appropriating the two seats directly
opposite Roy, they turned one of them back, and to the great horror of
the invalid opened both the windows, thereby letting in a gust of air
which blew directly across Roy’s face, while Mrs. Churchill received an
ugly cinder in her eye, which nearly blinded her. In blissful ignorance
of the discomfort they were causing, or of the very uncomplimentary
things the sick man and his mother were thinking, the girls chattered
on, and the cool wind blew the ribbons on their hats far out behind, and
tossed their veils airily, and lifted the golden brown curls of the one
who seemed to be the life of the party, and who talked the most, and
kept the others shrieking with laughter, while her bright eyes glanced
rapidly around the car, noting everything and everybody, until at last
they lighted upon the pair just across the aisle, Mrs. Churchill working
away at the obstinate cinder, and Roy wrapping his shawl more closely
about him, and wondering why girls would always persist in keeping the
windows open when everybody else was freezing. Roy was not in a very
amiable state of mind, and he showed it in his eyes, which flashed a
savage glance at the girl with the curls of golden brown, whom her
companions addressed as Edna. She was the worst of them all, for she had
opened both the windows, and then with the exclamation that she was
“roasted alive,” sat fanning herself briskly with the coquettish little
hat she had taken from her head. As she met Roy’s angry glance, the
smile which a moment before had wreathed her lips, vanished suddenly,
and she looked at him curiously, as if half expecting him to speak. But
Roy was silent for a time; then, as the bright, restless eyes of the
offender kept meeting his own inquiringly, he mustered courage to say:
“Young lady, you’ll oblige me by shutting that window. Don’t you see I
am catching cold?” and a loud sneeze attested to the truth of what he
said.
It was not like Roy Leighton thus to address any one, and he repented of
his surliness in an instant, and wished he might do something to atone.
But it was now too late. He had shown himself a savage, and must abide
the result.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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