The Country of the Blind, and Other StoriesWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science fiction, English
Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand--the rest unread--and sat
with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before morning
school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were well under
way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of great calm. But
after the first sheet she went on reading the third without discovering
the error:--"told him frankly I did not like his name," the third sheet
began. "He told me he did not like it himself--you know that sort of
sudden, frank way he has"--Miss Winchelsea did know. "So I said, 'couldn't
you change it?' He didn't see it at first. Well, you know, dear, he had
told me what it really meant; it means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to
Snooks--both Snooks and Noaks, dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be,
are really worn forms of Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideas
at times--'If it got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it back
from Snooks to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it is, dear, he
couldn't refuse me, and he changed his spelling there and then to Senoks
for the bills of the new lecture. And afterwards, when we are married, we
shall put in the apostrophe and make it Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to
mind that fancy of mine, when many men would have taken offence? But it is
just like him all over; he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew as
well as I did that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been ten
times Snooks. But he did it all the same."
The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn, and
looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face and with some very
small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few seconds they stared
at her stare, and then her expression changed back to a more familiar one.
"Has any one finished number three?" she asked in an even tone. She
remained calm after that. But impositions ruled high that day. And she
spent two laborious evenings writing letters of various sorts to Fanny,
before she found a decent congratulatory vein. Her reason struggled
hopelessly against the persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an exceedingly
treacherous manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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