anything
else. Let me put the main question to you now that I could not put the
other afternoon. Will you marry me, Ann Veronica?
"Very sincerely yours,
"HUBERT MANNING."
Ann Veronica read this letter through with grave, attentive eyes.
Her interest grew as she read, a certain distaste disappeared. Twice she
smiled, but not unkindly. Then she went back and mixed up the sheets in
a search for particular passages. Finally she fell into reflection.
"Odd!" she said. "I suppose I shall have to write an answer. It's so
different from what one has been led to expect."
She became aware of her aunt, through the panes of the greenhouse,
advancing with an air of serene unconsciousness from among the raspberry
canes.
"No you don't!" said Ann Veronica, and walked out at a brisk and
business-like pace toward the house.
"I'm going for a long tramp, auntie," she said.
"Alone, dear?"
"Yes, aunt. I've got a lot of things to think about."
Miss Stanley reflected as Ann Veronica went toward the house. She
thought her niece very hard and very self-possessed and self-confident.
She ought to be softened and tender and confidential at this phase of
her life. She seemed to have no idea whatever of the emotional states
that were becoming to her age and position. Miss Stanley walked round
the garden thinking, and presently house and garden reverberated to Ann
Veronica's slamming of the front door.
"I wonder!" said Miss Stanley.
For a long time she surveyed a row of towering holly-hocks, as though
they offered an explanation. Then she went in and up-stairs, hesitated
on the landing, and finally, a little breathless and with an air of
great dignity, opened the door and walked into Ann Veronica's room. It
was a neat, efficient-looking room, with a writing-table placed with a
business-like regard to the window, and a bookcase surmounted by a
pig's skull, a dissected frog in a sealed bottle, and a pile of
shiny, black-covered note-books. In the corner of the room were two
hockey-sticks and a tennis-racket, and upon the walls Ann Veronica,
by means of autotypes, had indicated her proclivities in art. But Miss
Stanley took no notice of these things. She walked straight across to
the wardrobe and opened it. There, hanging among Ann Veronica's more
normal clothing, was a skimpy dress of red canvas, trimmed with cheap
and tawdry braid, and short—it could hardly reach below the knee. On
the same peg and evidently belonging to it was a black velvet Zouave
jacket. And then! a garment that was conceivably a secondary skirt.
Miss Stanley hesitated, and took first one and then another of the
constituents of this costume off its peg and surveyed it.
The third item she took with a trembling hand by its waistbelt. As she
raised it, its lower portion fell apart into two baggy crimson masses.
"TROUSERS!" she whispered.
Her eyes travelled about the room as if in appeal to the very chairs.
Tucked under the writing-table a pair of yellow and gold Turkish
slippers of a highly meretricious quality caught her eye. She walked
over to them still carrying the trousers in her hands, and stooped to
examine them. They were ingenious disguises of gilt paper destructively
gummed, it would seem, to Ann Veronicas' best dancing-slippers.
Then she reverted to the trousers.
"How CAN I tell him?" whispered Miss Stanley.
Part 2
Ann Veronica carried a light but business-like walking-stick. She walked
with an easy quickness down the Avenue and through the proletarian
portion of Morningside Park, and crossing these fields came into a
pretty overhung lane that led toward Caddington and the Downs. And
then her pace slackened. She tucked her stick under her arm and re-read
Manning's letter.
"Let me think," said Ann Veronica. "I wish this hadn't turned up to-day
of all days."
She found it difficult to begin thinking, and indeed she was anything
but clear what it was she had to think about. Practically it was most
of the chief interests in life that she proposed to settle in
else. Let me put the main question to you now that I could not put the
other afternoon. Will you marry me, Ann Veronica?
"Very sincerely yours,
"HUBERT MANNING."
Ann Veronica read this letter through with grave, attentive eyes.
Her interest grew as she read, a certain distaste disappeared. Twice she
smiled, but not unkindly. Then she went back and mixed up the sheets in
a search for particular passages. Finally she fell into reflection.
"Odd!" she said. "I suppose I shall have to write an answer. It's so
different from what one has been led to expect."
She became aware of her aunt, through the panes of the greenhouse,
advancing with an air of serene unconsciousness from among the raspberry
canes.
"No you don't!" said Ann Veronica, and walked out at a brisk and
business-like pace toward the house.
"I'm going for a long tramp, auntie," she said.
"Alone, dear?"
"Yes, aunt. I've got a lot of things to think about."
Miss Stanley reflected as Ann Veronica went toward the house. She
thought her niece very hard and very self-possessed and self-confident.
She ought to be softened and tender and confidential at this phase of
her life. She seemed to have no idea whatever of the emotional states
that were becoming to her age and position. Miss Stanley walked round
the garden thinking, and presently house and garden reverberated to Ann
Veronica's slamming of the front door.
"I wonder!" said Miss Stanley.
For a long time she surveyed a row of towering holly-hocks, as though
they offered an explanation. Then she went in and up-stairs, hesitated
on the landing, and finally, a little breathless and with an air of
great dignity, opened the door and walked into Ann Veronica's room. It
was a neat, efficient-looking room, with a writing-table placed with a
business-like regard to the window, and a bookcase surmounted by a
pig's skull, a dissected frog in a sealed bottle, and a pile of
shiny, black-covered note-books. In the corner of the room were two
hockey-sticks and a tennis-racket, and upon the walls Ann Veronica,
by means of autotypes, had indicated her proclivities in art. But Miss
Stanley took no notice of these things. She walked straight across to
the wardrobe and opened it. There, hanging among Ann Veronica's more
normal clothing, was a skimpy dress of red canvas, trimmed with cheap
and tawdry braid, and short—it could hardly reach below the knee. On
the same peg and evidently belonging to it was a black velvet Zouave
jacket. And then! a garment that was conceivably a secondary skirt.
Miss Stanley hesitated, and took first one and then another of the
constituents of this costume off its peg and surveyed it.
The third item she took with a trembling hand by its waistbelt. As she
raised it, its lower portion fell apart into two baggy crimson masses.
"TROUSERS!" she whispered.
Her eyes travelled about the room as if in appeal to the very chairs.
Tucked under the writing-table a pair of yellow and gold Turkish
slippers of a highly meretricious quality caught her eye. She walked
over to them still carrying the trousers in her hands, and stooped to
examine them. They were ingenious disguises of gilt paper destructively
gummed, it would seem, to Ann Veronicas' best dancing-slippers.
Then she reverted to the trousers.
"How CAN I tell him?" whispered Miss Stanley.
Part 2
Ann Veronica carried a light but business-like walking-stick. She walked
with an easy quickness down the Avenue and through the proletarian
portion of Morningside Park, and crossing these fields came into a
pretty overhung lane that led toward Caddington and the Downs. And
then her pace slackened. She tucked her stick under her arm and re-read
Manning's letter.
"Let me think," said Ann Veronica. "I wish this hadn't turned up to-day
of all days."
She found it difficult to begin thinking, and indeed she was anything
but clear what it was she had to think about. Practically it was most
of the chief interests in life that she proposed to settle in
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