There is no shadow of this on the two persons who are occupying the
room just now. One of them, a very pretty woman in miniature, her tiny
figure dressed with the daintiest gaiety, is of a later generation,
being hardly eighteen yet. This darling little creature clearly does
not belong to the room, or even to the country; for her complexion,
though very delicate, has been burnt biscuit color by some warmer sun
than England's; and yet there is, for a very subtle observer, a link
between them. For she has a glass of water in her hand, and a rapidly
clearing cloud of Spartan obstinacy on her tiny firm set mouth and
quaintly squared eyebrows. If the least line of conscience could be
traced between those eyebrows, an Evangelical might cherish some faint
hope of finding her a sheep in wolf's clothing - for her frock is
recklessly pretty - but as the cloud vanishes it leaves her frontal
sinus as smoothly free from conviction of sin as a kitten's.
The dentist, contemplating her with the self-satisfaction of a
successful operator, is a young man of thirty or thereabouts. He does
not give the impression of being much of a workman: his professional
manner evidently strikes him as being a joke, and is underlain by a
thoughtless pleasantry which betrays the young gentleman still unsettled
and in search of amusing adventures, behind the newly set-up dentist in
search of patients.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25