Lord Ormont and His Aminta — CompleteMeredith, George
General
Lord Ormont and His Aminta — Complete
Meredith, George
English fiction -- 19th century
Browny was then clearly seen all round, instead of only front-face, as
on the Sunday in the park, when fellows could not spy backward after
passing. The pleasure they had in seeing her all round involved no fresh
stores of observation, for none could tell how she tied her back-hair,
which was the question put to them by a cynic of a boy, said to be
queasy with excess of sisters. They could tell that she was tall for a
girl, or tallish--not a maypole. She drank a cup of tea, and ate a slice
of bread-and-butter; no cake.
She appeared undisturbed when Matey, wearing his holiday white ducks,
and all aglow, entered the booth. She was not expected to faint, only
she stood for the foreign Aminta more than for their familiar Browny in
his presence. Not a sign of the look which had fired the school did she
throw at him. Change the colour and you might compare her to a lobster
fixed on end, with a chin and no eyes. Matey talked to Miss Vincent up
to the instant of his running to bat. She would have liked to guess how
he knew she had a brother on the medical staff of one of the regiments
in India: she asked him twice, and his cheeks were redder than cricket
in the sun. He said he read all the reports from India, and asked her
whether she did not admire Lord Ormont, our general of cavalry, whose
charge at the head of fifteen hundred horse in the last great battle
shattered the enemy's right wing, and gave us the victory--rolled him up
and stretched him out like a carpet for dusting. Miss Vincent exclaimed
that it was really strange, now, he should speak of Lord Ormont, for she
had been speaking of him herself in morning to one of her young ladies,
whose mind was bent on his heroic deeds. Matey turned his face to the
group of young ladies, quite pleased that one of them loved his hero;
and he met a smile here and there--not from Miss Aminta Farrell. She was
a complete disappointment to the boys that day. “Aminta” was mouthed at
any allusions to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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