Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 06Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
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Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 06
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
"All grown-up people, I suppose? No, thank you, dear aunt. You go
alone, I would rather stay at home. May I have little Clemmy to play
with? She will bring Juba, and Blanche is very partial to Juba,
though she does scratch him."
"Very well, my dear, you shall have your playmate, and I will go by
myself."
Kenelm stood aghast. "You will not go, Miss Mordaunt; Mrs. Braefield
will be so disappointed. And if you don't go, whom shall I have to
talk to? I don't like grown-up people better than you do."
"You are going?"
"Certainly."
"And if I go you will talk to me? I am afraid of Mr. Braefield. He
is so wise."
"I will save you from him, and will not utter a grain of wisdom."
"Aunty, I will go."
Here Lily made a bound and caught up Blanche, who, taking her kisses
resignedly, stared with evident curiosity upon Kenelm.
Here a bell within the house rang the announcement of luncheon. Mrs.
Cameron invited Kenelm to partake of that meal. He felt as Romulus
might have felt when first invited to taste the ambrosia of the gods.
Yet certainly that luncheon was not such as might have pleased Kenelm
Chillingly in the early days of the Temperance Hotel. But somehow or
other of late he had lost appetite; and on this occasion a very modest
share of a very slender dish of chicken fricasseed, and a few cherries
daintily arranged on vine leaves, which Lily selected for him,
contented him,--as probably a very little ambrosia contented Romulus
while feasting his eyes on Hebe.
Luncheon over, while Mrs. Cameron wrote her reply to Elsie, Kenelm was
conducted by Lily into her own /own/ room, in vulgar parlance her
/boudoir/, though it did not look as if any one ever /bouder'd/ there.
It was exquisitely pretty,--pretty not as a woman's, but as a child's
dream of the own /own/ room she would like to have,--wondrously neat
and cool, and pure-looking; a trellis paper, the trellis gay with
roses and woodbine, and birds and butterflies; draperies of muslin,
festooned with dainty tassels and ribbons; a dwarf bookcase, that
seemed well stored, at least as to bindings; a dainty little
writing-table in French /marqueterie/, looking too fresh and spotless
to have known hard service. The casement was open, and in keeping
with the trellis paper; woodbine and roses from without encroached on
the window-sides, gently stirred by the faint summer breeze, and
wafted sweet odours into the little room. Kenelm went to the window,
and glanced on the view beyond. "I was right," he said to himself; "I
divined it." But though he spoke in a low inward whisper, Lily, who
had watched his movements in surprise, overheard.
"You divined it. Divined what?"
"Nothing, nothing; I was but talking to myself."
"Tell me what you divined: I insist upon it!" and Fairy petulantly
stamped her tiny foot on the floor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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