Labrador (N.L.) -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Love stories, English
Aunt Plessington was a tall lean woman, with firm features, a high
colour and a bright eye, who wore hats to show she despised them, and
carefully dishevelled hair. Her dress was always good, but extremely old
and grubby, and she commanded respect chiefly by her voice. Her voice
was the true governing-class voice, a strangulated contralto, abundant
and authoritative; it made everything she said clear and important, so
that if she said it was a fine morning it was like leaded print in the
_Times_, and she had over her large front teeth lips that closed quietly
and with a slight effort after her speeches, as if the words she spoke
tasted well and left a peaceful, secure sensation in the mouth.
Uncle Hubert was a less distinguished figure, and just a little
reminiscent of the small attached husbands one finds among the lower
crustacea: he was much shorter and rounder than his wife, and if he had
been left to himself, he would probably have been comfortably fat in his
quiet little way. But Aunt Plessington had made him a Haigite, which is
one of the fiercer kinds of hygienist, just in the nick of time. He had
round shoulders, a large nose, and glasses that made him look
astonished--and she said he had a great gift for practical things, and
made him see after everything in that line while she did the lecturing.
His directions to the porter finished, he came up to his niece. "Hello,
Marjorie!" he said, in a peculiar voice that sounded as though his mouth
was full (though of course, poor dear, it wasn't), "how's the First
Class?"
"A second's good enough for me, Uncle Hubert," said Marjorie, and asked
if they would rather walk or go in the donkey cart, which was waiting
outside with Daffy. Aunt Plessington, with an air of great _bonhomie_
said she'd ride in the donkey cart, and they did. But no pseudo-twins or
Theodore came to meet this arrival, as both uncle and aunt had a way of
asking how the lessons were getting on that they found extremely
disagreeable. Also, their aunt measured them, and incited them with loud
encouraging noises to grow one against the other in an urgent,
disturbing fashion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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