Cities and towns -- Growth -- Fiction; Wales -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Then that crafty and stately piece of legerdemain of Belle's had its
reward. In his rippling cream alpaca, there approached along the sands
Mr. Morrell himself, and Belle's neck no longer resembled the pistil of
an arum lily. She bent ingratiatingly forward; as if a key had clicked,
a dazzling smile cut her face into two; and after a jocular word or two
Mr. Morrell bore her off, Ynys following. Let us follow too.
Do look at the contrast--those summer things, and the two wanderers in
whom all the seasons are ingrained; carefully veiled and sunburn-cured
complexions, and these other vagrants, brown as the upturned earth; the
indefatigable maintenance of artificial attitudes even before one
another, and the grave ease of the child, the deliberate gesture with
which the mother looses as it were in the sheath the only weapon she has
against the world.... Frith's "_Derby Day_?" Yes, it is a little like
it; but listen. Mrs. Maynard, with a sparkling glance about her that
says "Mum," has slipped off her wedding-ring, and Belle has taken her
hand. It is slim as a glove that has never been put on, and Mrs. Maynard
intends to trip Belle if she can.
So, when Belle begins to promise Mrs. Maynard a husband who shall be
such-and-such, there are winks and glances and nudges, as much as to say
that now they are going to have some fun, and Mr. Morrell says, "Here,
ho'd on a bit, mother--how do you know she isn't married?"
If Belle shows the knife for a moment, she does it so delicately that
nobody notices it.
"If the prit-ty lady was married, her man he srink a ring upon her
finger, red-hot, as they srink a tyre on a cart-wheel," Belle replies;
and the reading of Mrs. Maynard's palm continues.
Mrs. Lacey, a pale blue hollyhock, looks as if she pooh-poohed the whole
thing; but inwardly she is a-tremble with eagerness to have the fortunes
of her two daughters told. As it happens, no sooner is Mrs. Maynard's
hand dropped than Mr. Morrell, who happens to be standing next to June,
catches her by the arm.
"Come on, June, and be told how to get a husband!" he cries, and he
slips a shilling into Belle's hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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