The Minister's Charge by William Dean Howells
page 57 of 438 (13%)
page 57 of 438 (13%)
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girl, her face red with weeping and her hair disordered, came back
with him. She held a crumpled straw hat with the brim torn loose, and in spite of her disordered looks she was very pretty, with blue eyes flung very wide open, and rough brown hair, wavy and cut short, almost like a boy's. This Lemuel saw in the frightened glance they exchanged. "This the fellow that assaulted you?" asked the man at the desk, nodding his head toward Lemuel, who tried to speak; but it was like a nightmare; he could not make any sound. "There were three of them," said the girl with hysterical volubility. "One of them pulled my hat down over my eyes and tore it, and one of them held me by the elbows behind, and they grabbed my satchel away that had a book in it that I had just got out of the library. I hadn't got it more than----" "What name?" asked the man at the desk. _"A Young Man's Darling,"_ said the girl, after a bashful hesitation. Lemuel had read that book just before he left home; he had not thought it was much of a book. "The captain wants to know your name," said the officer in charge of Lemuel. "Oh," said the girl, with mortification. "Statira Dudley." "What age?" asked the captain. |
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