Matey, that he set them laughing; and Browny was on the field, to reprove
them, left of the tea-booth, with her school-mates, part of her head
under a scarlet parasol.

A girl with such a name as Aminta might not be exactly up to the standard
of old Matey, still, if he thought her so and she had spirit, the school
was bound to subscribe; and that look of hers warranted her for taking
her share in the story, like the brigand's wife loading gnus for him
while he knocks over the foremost carabineer on the mountain-ledge below,
who drops on his back with a hellish expression.

Browny was then clearly seen all round, instead of only front-face,
as on the Sunday in the park, when fellows could not spy backward after
passing. The pleasure they had in seeing her all round involved no fresh
stores of observation, for none could tell how she tied her back-hair,
which was the question put to them by a cynic of a boy, said to be queasy
with excess of sisters. They could tell that she was tall for a girl,
or tallish--not a maypole. She drank a cup of tea, and ate a slice of
bread-and-butter; no cake.

She appeared undisturbed when Matey, wearing his holiday white ducks,
and all aglow, entered the booth. She was not expected to faint, only
she stood for the foreign Aminta more than for their familiar Browny in
his presence. Not a sign of the look which had fired the school did she
throw at him. Change the colour and you might compare her to a lobster
fixed on end, with a chin and no eyes. Matey talked to Miss Vincent up
to the instant of his running to bat. She would have liked to guess how
he knew she had a brother on the medical staff of one of the regiments in
India: she asked him twice, and his cheeks were redder than cricket in
the sun. He said he read all the reports from India, and asked her