This FreedomHutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
General
This Freedom
Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Marriage -- Fiction; Women -- Social and moral questions -- Fiction
Only one of them contributed to the life of Rosalie and this was
“Keggo,” Miss Keggs, who taught mathematics. This Keggo was rather like
Anna in appearance, Rosalie thought, and was most popular of all the
mistresses with the girls, partly because of her bright moments in which
she was a human creature and an entertaining creature; partly because
of her curiously supine periods in which she would be utterly listless,
allow her class to do anything they liked provided they kept perfectly
quiet, and would make no attempt whatsoever to correct idleness or to
impart the lesson of the hour. Miss Keggs had been known to knock over
the inkpot on her desk and sit and watch the ink dripping in a pool
on to the floor without making the least attempt even to upstand the
vessel. No one knew why Keggo had these moods. But it was known that for
her to come into class looking rather flushed was a sign foreshadowing
them.
She appeared to take a fancy to Rosalie from the first, and Rosalie to
her, probably by reason of the fancied resemblance to Anna. She invited
Rosalie to her room and Rosalie loved to go there because the One Onlys
were in a very weak and humble minority in Rosalie’s first term and
were rather hunted by the Sultans who were then particularly strong in
numbers and rich in apparel, in pocket money, and in friends. The poor
little One Onlys led rather abashed lives and they had no chance at all
around the playroom fire where the Sultans stretched their elegant legs
and warmed their shapely toes.
One evening in her first few weeks Rosalie had to take an exercise up
to Miss Keggs, and Miss Keggs’s room was warm, and Miss Keggs like
Anna, and Rosalie lingered and was invited to linger; after that Rosalie
sought and invented reasons for going up to Miss Keggs’s room and Miss
Keggs would nearly always say, “Well, you may stay a little, Rosalie, as
you’re here.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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