The Amazing Marriage — Volume 2 by George Meredith
page 15 of 113 (13%)
page 15 of 113 (13%)
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A shot of colour swept over Henrietta. 'I will speak to papa:--if he can let me go. He has taken to Miss Kirby.' 'Does she taste well?' Henrietta debated. 'It's impossible to dislike her. Oh! she is wild! She knows absolutely nothing of the world. She can do everything we can't--or don't dare to try.--Men would like her. Papa's beginning to doat. He says she would have made a first-rate soldier. She fears blood as little as her morning cup of milk. One of the orderlies fell rather badly from a frightened horse close by our carriage. She was out in a moment and had his head on her lap, calling to papa to keep the carriage fast and block the way of the squadron, for the man's leg was hurt. I really thought we were lost. At these manoeuvres anything may happen, at any instant. Papa will follow the horse-artillery. You know his vanity to be a military quite as much as a naval commander like the Greeks and Romans, he says. We took the bruised man into our carriage and drove him to camp, Carinthia nursing him on the way.' 'Carinthia! She's well fitted with her name. What with her name and her hair and her build and her singular style of attire, one wonders at her coming into civilized parts. She 's utterly unlike Chillon.' Henrietta reddened at the mention of one of her own thoughts in the contrasting of the pair. They had their points of likeness, she said. |
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