"Allen, Grant - Miss Cayley's Adventures 01 - The Adventure of the Cantankerous Old Lady" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Grant)

because of my dark complexion, but partly because they could
never understand me. 'We all knew that long ago.'

I laid down the paste-brush and mused.

'Do you remember, Elsie,' I said, staring hard at the
paper-board, 'when I first went to Girton, how all you girls
wore your hair quite straight, in neat smooth coils, plaited
up at the back about the size of a pancake; and how of a
sudden I burst in upon you, like a tropical hurricane, and
demoralised you; and how, after three days of me, some of
the dear innocents began with awe to cut themselves artless
fringes, while others went out in fear and trembling and
surreptitiously purchased a pair of curling-tongs? I was a
bomb-shell in your midst in those days; why, you yourself
were almost afraid at first to speak to me.'

'You see, you had a bicycle,' Elsie put in, smoothing the
half-papered wall; 'and in those days, of course, ladies
didn't bicycle. You must admit, Brownie, dear, it was a
startling innovation. You terrified us so. And yet, after
all, there isn't much harm in you.'

'I hope not,' I said devoutly. 'I was before my time that
was all; at present, even a curate's wife may blamelessly
bicycle.'

'But if you don't teach,' Elsie went on, gazing at me with
those wondering big blue eyes of hers, 'whatever will you
do, Brownie?' Her horizon was bounded by the scholastic
circle.

'I haven't the faintest idea,' I answered, continuing to
paste. 'Only, as I can't trespass upon your elegant
hospitality for life, whatever I mean to do, I must begin
doing this morning, when we've finished the papering. I
couldn't teach' (teaching, like mauve, is the refuge of the
incompetent); 'and I don't, if possible, want to sell
bonnets.'

'As a milliner's girl?' Elsie asked, with a face of red
horror.

'As a milliner's girl; why not? 'Tis an honest calling.
Earls' daughters do it now. But you needn't look so
shocked. I tell you, just at present, I am not contemplating
it.'

'Then what do you contemplate?'