There are many ways of achieving distinction, but few are more
effectual than a steady habit of punctuality. By this you may shine
even in the appalling gloom of the underground railway. Among all the
women who wait every morning for the City trains at Gower Street
Station, there was none more conspicuously punctual than Miss Flossie
Walker. The early clerk who travelled citywards was always sure of
seeing that little figure on the same spot at the same moment,
provided he himself were punctual and kept a sharp look-out. This you
may be sure he took good care to do. To look at Flossie once was to
look again and yet again. And he was fortunate indeed if his route lay
between Moorgate Street Station and the Bank, for then he had the
pleasure of seeing her sharply threading her way among the traffic, if
that can be said of anything so soft and round as Flossie.
If Flossie's figure was small and round, her face was somewhat large,
a perfect oval moulded in the subtlest curves, smooth and white
moreover, with a tinge of ivory sallow towards the roots of her black
hair. Wonderful hair was Flossie's. In those days she parted it in the
middle and waved it symmetrically on either side of her low forehead;
she brought it over her ears, covering all but the tips and the
delicate pink lobes; she coiled it at the back in an elaborate spiral
and twisted it into innumerable little curls about the nape of her
neck. Unfortunately that neck was rather short; but she wore low
collars which made the most of it. And then Flossie's features were so
very correct. She had a correct little nose, neither straight nor
aquiline, but a distracting mixture of both, and a correct little
mouth, so correct and so small that you wondered how it managed to
display so many white teeth in one diminutive smile. Flossie's eyes
were not as her mouth; they were large, full-lidded, long-lashed, and
blacker than her hair. No wonder if the poor clerk who passed her on
her way to and fro in the City rejoiced as they looked up at him. She
might be going to her work as he to his, but what with her bright eyes
and her blue ribbons, she looked the very genius of holiday as she
went.
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account