The Mating of Lydia by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 71 of 510 (13%)
page 71 of 510 (13%)
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Lydia walked into the house, and put her head into the drawing-room. "Sorry, mother! It was so lovely, I couldn't come in. And I met a dear old shepherd I know. Don't bother about me. I'll get some milk and cake." She closed the door again, before her mother could protest. "Girls will never think of their meals!" said Mrs. Penfold to herself in irritation. "And then all of a sudden they get nerves--or consumption--or something." As she spoke, she withdrew from the window, and curled herself up on a sofa, where a knitted coverlet lay, ready to draw over her feet. Mrs. Penfold was a slight, pretty woman of fifty with invalidish Sybaritic ways, and a character which was an odd mixture of humility and conceit--diffidence and audacity. She was quite aware that she was not as clever as her daughters. She could not write poetry like Susan, or paint like Lydia. But then, in her own opinion, she had so many merits they were without; merits which more than maintained her self-respect, and enabled her to hold her ground with them. For instance: by the time she was four and twenty, Lydia's age, she had received at least a dozen proposals. Lydia's scalps, so far as her mother knew, were only two--fellow-students at South Kensington, absurd people, not to be counted. Then, pretty as Lydia was, her nose could not be compared for delicacy with her mother's. "My nose was always famous"--Mrs. Penfold would say complacently to her daughters--"it was that which first attracted your dear father. 'It was,' he said--you know he always expressed himself so remarkably--'such a sure sign of "race."' His own people--oh! they were quite nice people--but quite middle-class." Again, |
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