Then, casting carelessly over her shoulder
that web-like shawl without which no woman nor spider is complete, she
arranges her lips in the glass for the last time, and, with a garden-hat
hanging from the elbow latest singed, goes down, humming
un-suspiciously, into the open-air, with the guileless bearing of one
wholly unprepared for company.
Resting an elbow upon a low iron patent-pump, near a rustic seat, the
Ritualistic organist, in his vast linen coat and imposing straw hat,
looks not unlike an eccentric garden statue, upon which some prudish
slave of modern conventionalities has placed the summer attire of a
western editor. The great heat of the sun upon his back makes him
irritable, and when Miss POTTS sharply smites with her fan the knuckles
of the hand which he has affably extended to take her by the chin, more
than the usual symptoms of acute inflammation appear at the end of his
nose, and he blows hurriedly upon his wounded digits.
"That hurt like the mischief!" he remarks, in some anger. "I don't know
when I've felt anything smart so."
"Then don't be so horrid," returns the pensive girl, taking a seat
before him upon the rustic settee, and abstractedly arranging her dress
so that only two-thirds of a gaiter-boot can be seen.
Munching cloves, the aroma of which ladens the air all around him, Mr.
BUMSTEAD contemplates her with a calmness which would be enthralling,
but for the nervous twisting of his features under the torments of a
singularly adhesive fly.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27