Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/26

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
16
THE REVERBERATOR.

(which is perhaps also the most graceful) American type. She was brilliantly but quietly pretty, and your suspicion that she was a little stiff was corrected only by your perception that she was extremely soft. There was nothing in her to confirm the implication that she had rushed about the deck of a Cunarder with a newspaperman. She was as straight as a wand and as fine as a gem; her neck was long and her gray eyes had colour; and from the ripple of her dark brown hair to the curve of her unaffirmative chin every line in her face was happy and pure. She had an unformed voice and very little knowledge.

Delia got up, and they came out of the little reading-room—this young lady remarking to her sister that she hoped she had got all the things. "Well, I had a fiendish hunt for them, we have got so many," Francie replied, with a curious soft drawl. "There were a few dozens of the pocket-handkerchiefs I couldn't find; but I guess I've got most of them, and most of the gloves."

"Well, what are you carting them about for?" George Flack inquired, taking the parcel from her. "You had better let me handle them. Do you buy pocket-handkerchiefs by the hundred?"

"Well, it only makes fifty apiece," said Francie, smiling. "They ain't nice—we're going to change them."

"Oh, I won't be mixed up with that—you