Kit and Kitty: A Story of West MiddlesexBlackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
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Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex
Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
Middlesex (England) -- Fiction
I know that this was very wrong of me—as wrong as well could be. And
I used to steal a glance at Kitty, when she was not watching, and ask
myself if any man with two eyes in his head could turn them twice on
Sally Chalker, after such a view as that. However, I did not say so;
for I felt that my darling should know better, and if she chose to be
like that, why she must, until she came to reason; and that was her
place, more than mine. But I could not bear to hear her sigh.
Miss Parslow rather enjoyed this business, which was a great deal worse
of her than anything that I did. For she herself had set it going, with
no consideration for my feelings, and no right whatever. And I think
that she ought to have healed the mischief, which she could have done
at any moment; whereas she pretended not to see it, although she was
much too sharp for that.
However, it could not go on long, and I had made up my mind to clear it
up, when I was saved the trouble. For as I sat in my favourite place,
with the lovely valley before me, and the sun sinking into a bed of
roses far beyond the Surrey hills, I heard the little pit-a-pat that
was dearer than my pulse to me, and down the winding walk came Kitty,
carrying an ugly yellow book. She had no hat on, and her hair was tied
back, as if it had been troubling her; and as soon as she saw me she
turned away her head, and hastily passed her hand over her cheeks, as
if to be sure that they were dry. Then she looked at me bravely, though
her mouth was twitching, and said—“Oh, will you do it for me, if you
please?”
“Do what?” I asked very reasonably, though I began to guess what she
was thinking of; for the ugly book was a Railway Guide.
“Miss Parslow told me to ask you. She cannot make it out any more than
I can. It is very stupid, of course; but she says that she never met a
woman who could make out Bradshaw, and she would strictly avoid her, if
she ever did.”
“But what is it I am to make out? We can’t get to Sunbury, by any line,
my darling.” When I called her that, her dear eyes shone; but she went
on, as if she were correcting them.
“What I want to make out is a good quick train, without any extra fare
to pay, from London to Glasgow; and it must arrive by daylight, though
I suppose it would have to start at night for that. But I am not at all
afraid.”
“What on earth has got into this lovely little head?” I made offer to
take it between my two hands, as I had been allowed to do, once or
twice, when apparently falling back in health. But it seemed to prefer
its own support just now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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