Secret BreadJesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
General
Secret Bread
Jesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction
"D'you think girls are so very different from us ...?" went on Killigrew
after a moment's silence. "The sort of things they really want to do and
think about?"
"Girls are quite different," said Ishmael firmly; "they talk awful rot;
I've heard my sister and Phoebe--that's a girl at home."
"Yes, so does my sister--at least, she talks sort of clever stuff
that's as bad. But how about Hilaria?" asked her admirer.
"Well, she's more sensible than most, because she wants to do things as
though she weren't a girl, but I don't see how she's going to keep it
up. She'll fall in love and then it'll all be over."
"You don't think much of girls, do you?"
"Oh, well ... they're all right, I suppose. I want to do things, and
girls want to feel things. Oh, yes, Bunny, they're awfully different."
"From you, perhaps ... I dunno ... I say, d'you really want the old
bishop to lay his paws on your head?"
"Yes," replied Ishmael, briefly.
"Well, so does Hilaria. She read me some stuff out of a book--ripping
fine stuff it was--by a chap called Mallory. All about knights that were
searching for a cup they thought had the blood of God in it or something
of the sort. But she seemed to believe it."
"I believe it, too. Not that they lived like that book, but that there
is the Blood ... Oh, what's the good of trying to explain to you? It's
like you when you're painting and you try and make me see a lot of
colours I can't."
"Hullo ... there she comes," cried Killigrew, with a sudden quickening
of voice and aspect; "I say, it must be ghastly trying to walk in one of
those things. Girls must be different or they wouldn't put up with them.
I'll go and help her. Come on, we'll have to sit down below now."
The two boys scrambled down the boulders and assisted Hilaria--the hem
of whose white tarlatan skirts showed already the worse for her
walk--over the hummocky patch of rocks and gorse that fringed the
hollow. Laughing rather ruefully, she flung herself down, scattering her
bonnet, shawl, and bag over the turf in the impetuous movement. The
lowest rim of the crinoline promptly stood straight up from the ground
like a hoop, displaying her long legs and the multitudinous petticoats
lying limply upon them, and she was forced to adopt a change of
position. Finally she settled herself with her feet tucked in under her
and the obnoxious garment swelling out all round, as though she had just
flopped down and made what the children call a "cheese."
"I say, where's the magazine?" asked Ishmael.
"In my bag; but you're not to 'look on.' Here are some jumbles, but we
must keep the others' share for them. Did you get them all, Ishmael?"
For some reason best known to herself, she called him by his Christian
name and Killigrew by his nickname of "Bunny," though she addressed the
other boys in mannish fashion of surnames only.
"I told Polkinghorne minor and told him to let the others know."
"Did you remember to tell him we didn't want Doughty?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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