Old Friends, Epistolary Parody by Andrew Lang
page 16 of 119 (13%)
page 16 of 119 (13%)
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Your eyes upon the page may fall,
More like the page will miss your eyes; You may be listening after all, So goes he singing till he dies. LETTER: From the Hon. Cecil Bertie to the Lady Guinevere. Mr. Cecil Tremayne, who served "Under Two Flags," an officer in her Majesty's Guards, describes to the Lady Guinevere the circumstances of his encounter with Miss Annie P. (or Daisy) Miller. The incident has been omitted by Ouida and Mr. Henry James. You ask me, Camarada, what I think of the little American donzella, Daisy Miller? Hesterna Rosa, I may cry with the blind old bard of Tusculum; or shall we say, Hesterna Margaritae? Yesterday's Daisy, yesterday's Rose, were it of Paestum, who values it to-day? Mais ou sont les neiges d'automne? However, yesterday--the day before yesterday, rather--Miss Annie P. Miller was well enough. We were smoking at the club windows on the Ponte Vecchio; Marmalada, Giovanelli of the Bersaglieri, young Ponto of the K.O.B.'s, and myself--men who never give a thought save to the gold embroidery of their pantoufles or the exquisite ebon laquer of their Russia leather cricket-shoes. Suddenly we heard a clatter in the streets. The riderless chargers of the Bersaglieri were racing down the Santo Croce, and just turning, with a swing and shriek of |
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