English fiction -- 19th century; Marriage -- Fiction
Henrietta debated. 'It's impossible to dislike her. Oh! she is wild!
She knows absolutely nothing of the world. She can do everything we
can't--or don't dare to try.--Men would like her. Papa's beginning to
doat. He says she would have made a first-rate soldier. She fears blood
as little as her morning cup of milk. One of the orderlies fell rather
badly from a frightened horse close by our carriage. She was out in a
moment and had his head on her lap, calling to papa to keep the carriage
fast and block the way of the squadron, for the man's leg was hurt. I
really thought we were lost. At these manoeuvres anything may happen, at
any instant. Papa will follow the horse-artillery. You know his vanity
to be a military quite as much as a naval commander like the Greeks and
Romans, he says. We took the bruised man into our carriage and drove him
to camp, Carinthia nursing him on the way.'
'Carinthia! She's well fitted with her name. What with her name and her
hair and her build and her singular style of attire, one wonders at her
coming into civilized parts. She 's utterly unlike Chillon.'
Henrietta reddened at the mention of one of her own thoughts in the
contrasting of the pair.
They had their points of likeness, she said.
It did not concern Livia to hear what these were. Back to Baden, with
means to procure the pleasant shocks of the galvanic battery there, was
her thought; for she had a fear of the earl's having again departed in a
huff at Henrietta's behaviour.
The admiral consented that his daughter should go, as soon as he heard
that Miss Kirby was to stay. He had when a young man met her famous
father; he vowed she was the Old Buccaneer young again in petticoats and
had made prize of an English man-of-war by storm; all the profit,
however, being his. This he proved with a courteous clasp of the girl
and a show of the salute on her cheek, which he presumed to take at the
night's farewell. 'She's my tonic,' he proclaimed heartily. She seemed
to Livia somewhat unstrung and toneless. The separation from her brother
in the morning might account for it. And a man of the admiral's age
could be excused if he exalted the girl. Senility, like infancy, is fond
of plain outlines for the laying on of its paints. The girl had rugged
brows, a short nose, red hair; no young man would look at her twice. She
was utterly unlike Chillon! Kissing her hand to Henrietta from the steps
of the hotel, the girl's face improved.
Livia's little squire, Sir Meeson Corby, ejaculated as they were driving
down the main street, 'Fleetwood's tramp! There he goes. Now see, Miss
Fakenham, the kind of object Lord Fleetwood picks up and calls friend!--
calls that object friend! . . But, what? He has been to a tailor and
a barber!'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account