Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/81

 ‘That’s not the part of you which is sharp, my dear Miss Blemmyketts,’ said the vicar, as he shook hands with her. ‘What have you to complain of? Probably the greater part of the people who will see you to-day will prefer your figure to Lesbia’s.’

‘Don’t care a cuss for the approval of a pack of fools,’ she answered bitterly. ‘I can’t have my own, because of my waspification. Cuss’d be the waspifiers and deformers of girls, I say. I should like to see them all wedded to the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg. That would tighten them up à la mode to their hearts’ content, and also to the content of sensible people.’

‘Please, sir, breakfast’s ready,’ said Fidge, putting in her head, after having fumbled a minute at the door handle.

Meanwhile the two hunters, a bay hired by Miss Blemmyketts and a dappled grey, almost white, mare, about fifteen and a half hands, which the vicar, who had been a hunting man in his college days and was a judge of horseflesh, had bought for his niece—were sent on to the meet in charge of a boy whom Mr Bristley employed occasionally; while the whole party, including the two elder ladies, who liked going now and then to a meet to see their acquaintances, were to start later in the pony-carriage. At ten o'clock they drove off, the two girls in the small back seat, while the three elders managed to crush into the roomy front.

It was still a cold grey morning, with the wind in the east, and the party were well wrapped up in skins and rugs. On their way they had to pass through the town of Frogmore, stopping a minute at Bummingby’s for a parcel.

‘How’s the bicycle, ma’am?’ inquired the ironmonger of Lesbia, as he put the packet in the carriage.

‘Oh, she’s all right, thank you, Mr Bummingby,—had no mishaps since I saw you last. But the season’s about over for a few weeks; we're going to hunt this morning, you can see.’