THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD
nobody can help admiring her. And to her friends she can be very charming. The first thing that strikes you about her is her extraordinary fairness. She has the real Scandinavian pale gold hair. Her eyes are blue—blue as the waters of a Norwegian fiord, and her skin is cream and roses. She has square, boyish shoulders and slight hips. And to a jaded medical man it is very refreshing to come across such perfect health.
A simple straightforward English girl—I may be old-fashioned, but I think the genuine article takes a lot of beating.
Flora joined me by the silver table, and expressed heretical doubts as to King Charles I ever having worn the baby shoe.
“And anyway,” continued Miss Flora, “all this making a fuss about things because some one wore or used them seems to me all nonsense. They’re not wearing or using them now. The pen that George Eliot wrote The Mill on the Floss with—that sort of thing—well, it’s only just a pen after all. If you’re really keen on George Eliot, why not get The Mill on the Floss in a cheap edition and read it.”
“I suppose you never read such old out-of-date stuff, Miss Flora?”
“You’re wrong, Dr. Sheppard. I love The Mill on the Floss.”
I was rather pleased to hear it. The things young women read nowadays and profess to enjoy positively frighten me.
“You haven’t congratulated me yet, Dr. Sheppard,” said Flora. “Haven’t you heard?”
[34]
