Belle (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE MAINWARING GIRLS. My only books Were woman's looks, And folly's all they 've taught me. Moore. ON the other side of the High Street at Ducking- ton, opposite to the Hastings' house, lived the Mainwarings ? ' Dr. Mainwaring,' as the brass plate on the door informed passers-by, and as the red lamp over the small surgery-door farther on, continued to proclaim through the night. That dreary morning when Mr. Hastings slept that profound sleep from which no breakfast-bell nor fretful reminder of the lateness of the hour from his wife could rouse him, Dr. Mainwaring had been summoned, and had run across in dressing-gown and slippers and one of the girls' garden hats, almost before Mark and his mother had realized the awful solemnity of the occasion, which allowed no thought of the doctor's grotesque appearance. Mark and the Mainwaring girls had been great friends till this day. There were four of them, fat, good-natured, untidy and gossiping, kind-hearted and lazy, which does not sound an attractive mixture of qualities, but as a matter of fact, when well mixedand judiciously proportioned, and joined to pleasant exteriors, fresh healthy complexions, bright smiling eyes, and an undisguised liking for yourself, are very endurable. They all of them liked Mark very much, but so, for that matter, they did all young men and most girls. Bessie, the youngest, even had a slightly sentimental feeling regarding him which was not quite unreciprocated. There was no deception about them. Their faults were all on the surface, and they acknowledged their own and each other's quite openly. 'Lucy, you are lazy. Here, Mark, just turn her out of that arm-chair or she '11 grow into it." ' Now, Mark, don't come in here. The room is like a pigsty. There never was...