Lesbia Newman

Front matter

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A desperate charge of the French cavalry cleared the ground, bearing down the tall flagstaff as an avalanche would a reed, and with a horrid smash sacrificing many horses, as well as the limbs of their riders, against the squat round lighthouse, Roche's Tower.—[Page 218.]

LESBIA NEWMAN

PREFACE

PREFACE.

Should coming events not tally in every minute particular with the forecast incidental to the following pages, the reader will perhaps make allowance. Historians are not always quite agreed even as to the past; in writing the history of the future, the difficulties are obvious. It is curious, nevertheless, that although the rough copy of this work was written about five years ago, political affairs seem to be tending in the direction of its partial realisation.

But the characters are all fictitious, and therefore reflect upon no one. They are but ‘shadows passing through the gloom’ toward that light and hope of the world which cannot be reached by secular reforms alone, however thorough. For to raise woman and, at the same time, to depress the religious sentiment in mankind, is contradictory. Her elevation is the essence of religion itself, and will presumably be the better accomplished, the greater the prestige of the community which shall be called to the work. The fact that there exists one of ancient renown, already in some measure committed to, and pre-eminently fitted for, it, is patent indeed, but is not conclusive in favour of that one. The prize is open to all—detur digniori.

The author has done his best to make the book readable, but it is addressed to mature and earnest minds which care for something more than mere frothy sensation and amusement; the story being simply a vehicle, of no account in itself, but only in the single purpose it conveys, namely, uncompromising advocacy of the rights of women, and of their training for exercise of their rights. All else is beside the mark.

Chapter I

LESBIA NEWMAN.

CHAPTER I.

The Inmates of Dulham Vicarage.

‘Really, my dear brother, I can’t at all agree with you; I don’t think you are doing your duty either by society or by your niece herself. A girl who is brought up so differently from other girls can only end in being a martyr, besides causing a great deal of annoyance and discomfort to those about her.’

‘Well, Jane,’ replied the person addressed, ‘since we can’t agree, we had better agree to differ; in any case, I shall just go on as I have done with Lesbia; that is my duty to society, and it must be held to outweigh individual prejudices. As for making a martyr of my niece, would that be anything new? Are not all women, more or less, made, or make themselves, martyrs to hollow idols? If my influence should result in making one of Lesbia, it shall at all events be for something worth the martyrdom. She shall not be a martyr to ‘weakervesselism,’ as you and others are.’

‘Hallo! what’s that about martyrs?’ exclaimed a young girl of about thirteen or fourteen, bursting into the room as the last speaker finished his sentence. ‘A dispute over me, as usual, I suppose. Never mind; you stick to your colours, Uncle Spines, and I won’t mind being martyred by people I despise. And happily the world is not made up entirely of old fogies.’

‘Thank you, Lesbia,’ said her mother; ‘you are very complimentary.’

‘Oh, I don’t mean you, mamma, of course. I mean the people who preach maidenly femininity and womanly nimminy-pimminity, and all that stuff.’

‘But I’m afraid I must plead guilty to liking that stuff myself.’

‘So much the worse, mamma, dear; you insist that the cap shall fit you, which I did not intend.’

‘Perhaps you will think differently when you are older, Lesbie,’ said her mother sorrowfully.

‘Not very likely, Jane,’ put in the uncle. ‘Not so long as she and I are within reach of each other.’

‘That’s right, uncle,’ said the girl; ‘you are the only sensible man I know.’

‘I may be the only one you know, Lesbie, because your experience of the world is not wide as yet; but you would over-rate me and under-rate others if you imagined that there are not at this day plenty of men who share my views on the education of girls, and would do as well by you as I can.’

‘Now to change the subject,’ said the young girl; ‘how about that machine; when’s it coming?’

‘What, the bicycle? It’s come, and I told Fenrake to have it all ready by eleven this morning. It’s about that now, I think.’

‘That’s all right; then I’ll run up and get on my ‘bikes’; the road looks quite dried up.’

No sooner was she gone than the old gardener knocked at the door.

The foregoing conversation took place in the library of a small but comfortable country parsonage in one of the eastern counties, situated, with a southern aspect, on an eminence a little removed from the highroad which, emerging from a broad avenue of fine elms on the right of the parsonage, passed the bottom of its garden into the hamlet of Dulham on the left. The view from the library window on that fine June morning, the brighter for a night’s rain, extended over a wide range of flat grass land, bounded by gentle undulations in the distance; and the east breeze was bringing brine from the sea coast, distant about twenty miles.

The occupants of the room were the Reverend Spinosa Theodore Bristley, B.D., Vicar of Dulham, near Frogmore, Eastshire, a spare, tall, intellectual-looking man of about forty, with sharp features, a high open forehead, and thick glossy black hair; his widowed sister, Mrs Newman, and her daughter Lesbia. Mr Bristley had been married some years, but his wife had borne no children; she was a mild-mannered, amiable person, with no great natural gifts, and hardly as intelligent in conversation as might have been expected from one living with a man of her husband’s stamp. Her sister-in-law, Mrs Newman, was of a different style, but not enough so to prevent the two women agreeing upon the point of bitter opposition to the scheme upon which the vicar—a very original character—was bent, that of bringing up a girl to take her proper place in the world, untrammelled by the habits of studied littleness, fashion-serving, mischief-making, mean rivalry and general unsoundness, which society—at least, so said this eccentric parson—considers essentials of the perfect lady. Hence a chronic feud existed upon that one subject in the otherwise harmonious family, the girl being already old enough and quick enough to perceive that her female relatives wanted to bolster up the moribund old slavery of women, while her uncle was determined to give her freedom and power. He was never tired of disseminating the doctrine that if girls were brought up more like boys, in what is called manliness, and boys more like girls, in refinement and delicacy of mind, they would, as grown women and men, lead happier and nobler lives; society would be less injured by brutality in men and by the really greater though more plausible evil of “weakervesselism” in women. However, as financial and other practical considerations had brought about the arrangement whereby Mrs Newman kept house with her brother and his wife, and as all parties were too sensible to suppose that perfect union is to be looked for anywhere, they made the best of their dogmatical differences and on the whole got on comfortably together.

About Mr Bristley’s religious views, whether as clergyman or otherwise, all his professional brethren and their friends and belongings agreed that the less said the better. But he made up by works of charity, which, having some private fortune, he was well able to do; and his wife was constant in her ministrations to the sick and poor in the village. She was, in fact, out on her usual rounds on the morning when this story opens, and she appeared in the library about an hour after her niece had left it.

‘Upon my word, Theo, the neighbours will think we’re all crazy here. There’s that girl careering up and down the public road astride of a high bicycle, with old Fenrake running by her side and trying to keep her from tipping over, which I saw her do twice. She is covered with mud—I only hope not with bruises too. And such a costume too—dark blue knickers, stockings, and short jacket to match, and billycock hat; in short, every vestige of her sex carefully rubbed out—it really passes belief, my dearest—’

‘Why, that’s all right; it’s her bathing-dress; what better could she wear to begin learning in? You wouldn’t have a young lady mount a bicycle in flowing robes, would you, Kit?’

‘No, I wouldn’t have a young lady mount a bicycle at all. But it seems to be your mission in life, Theo, to outrage its proprieties.’

‘On the whole, I am disposed to agree with that remark,’ returned Mr Bristley coolly.

Before his wife could reply, Lesbia presented herself at the door, in her muddy costume, with a healthy glow on her face and her eyes sparkling.

‘Well, how did you get on?’ asked her uncle.

‘Oh, capitally; I rode about twenty yards by myself several times before tipping down. I haven’t learnt a proper dismount yet. I got one cropper, but not what you may call the real orthodox straight dive over the head.’

‘Enough to shake you though, I’m afraid. Feel any headache?’

‘Nothing to signify. I shall get used to it after a few more.

‘And, pray,’ inquired her mother ceremoniously, ‘did the—the public volunteer any observations?’

‘They were quite welcome to,’ answered the girl; ‘but I saw no public except three gentlemen—of the Frogmore club, it seems—who happened to pass on high bicycles just as I got my cropper. They called out ‘Bravo!’ and dismounted. One of them picked up my prostrate machine, and we had some general chat about bicycles and roads and makers and prices before they went on.’ She paused, and added,—‘They want me to join the club and rode about with the members, half-a-dozen or so at a time. What do you say, Uncle Spines?’

‘And didn’t they sing in chorus, ‘For she’s a jolly good fellow?’ asked her mother, in the same manner as before.

‘They didn’t sing it, but I have no doubt they thought it,’ retorted Lesbia. ‘If they didn’t, I do.’

‘Capital idea to ride with them, eh, Kitty?’ said Mr Bristley, appealing maliciously to his wife.

‘You don’t mean it, Theo?’

‘Mean it? Decidedly I do. Why shouldn’t she? She'll be safer with them than alone, and it'll give a famous blow to the proprieties, which you say is my mission.’

‘Well, anyhow, I suppose you’re going to put on your dress for luncheon, Miss Bravo,’ said her mother. ‘If so, you've not too much time.’

Chapter II

CHAPTER II.

Fidgfumblasquidiot.

The Vicar of Dulham agreed with his wife and sister in one thing at all events, they preferred old-fashioned domestics fished out of odd rustic corners to the ladyising and gentlemanising persons whom the town registry offices of to-day mostly supply. One we have already seen—the old gardener and general outdoor man Fenrake; his wife, a few years younger, was cook and housekeeper, and both were thoroughly efficient in their places. As much cannot be said for Mrs Fenrake’s niece Fidgfumblasquidiot Grewel, who had been taken into the vicarage at the same time. Some four-and-twenty years before the opening of this story, Mr Bristley, then newly installed at Dulham, had represented to the village-girl’s mother—a plump, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, silly little woman, whose idol was royalty and ‘haristocracy’—that Fidgfumblasquidiot was a very aristocratic name, and he had obtained Mrs Grewel’s consent to have her christened by it one Sunday afternoon, while a titter ran through the congregation. ‘Great thing, you know,’ Mr Bristley explained after the service was over, ‘for girls to have original names, and not to be all just Polly and Susey and Lizzie.’ Honest, comely little Fidge—for she was of slight make—was specially Lesbia’s attendant, and had lived with the family about eleven years in the capacity of a maid-of-no-work. Her mornings were spent in dawdling over her small jobs, and her entire afternoons in dawdling over the change of her gown. This latter operation generally lasted from about three to six p.m., but it must be said that when it was done she always looked very neat and even graceful.

To see Fidgfumblasquidiot dust a room was a study worth coming down early for on a cold morning. After a prolonged struggle with the handle of the door, she would come rolling in like a fishing-smack broadside on to a ground swell, a habit which had originated with her in the wearing of tight boots. Having rolled up to the china shelf or the mantelpiece, she would begin to swing a feather brush, held by the very top of the handle between her finger and thumb, lightly over two or three objects without touching them, muttering ‘Oh?’ interrogatively all the while to herself, and glancing now over one shoulder now over the other, as if she fancied a ghost were about to pounce upon her. This done, she would consider that the room was dusted, and still muttering ‘Oh?’ and glancing wildly about with her clear expressive eyes, she would roll lightly away into another apartment, and go through a similar dusting. All her other housemaid’s work was conducted on these principles, until the welcome afternoon arrived when she could retire to her bedroom for the three hours’ toilet. But she was trusty in all ways, and strongly attached to Lesbia, who liked her in return because Fidge had no taste for gossiping and flirtation, and what little she said could be relied upon, although she was not an intellectual companion.

‘What an irreclaimable blockhead that girl is!’ said Lesbia, when she rejoined the party downstairs, her little maid having brought some nitric acid to mark linen, instead of the marking-ink she had been told to fetch.

‘Not quite irreclaimable, perhaps, Lesbie,’ answered her uncle. ‘Give a girl, even a half-wit like that, a chance to associate with persons such as—a—’

‘Ahem! such as the Vicar of Dulham near Frogmore, and his still more remarkable niece,’ interposed Mrs Bristley. ‘Don’t be modest, Theo.’

‘I never am, Kitty,’ was the reply, ‘and I endorse your suggestion. My belief is, that if I were to superintend the training of a half-witted girl from childhood, she would pass the average mark. But with such treatment as most girls still undergo, the wonder is they don’t all turn out Fidgfumblasquidiots.’

Chapter III

CHAPTER III.

Bill and Joe

The incident in the road was soon followed by improving the acquaintance, and by our heroine’s admission into the Frogmore bicycle club. Mr Lyttelhurst, its promoter, who had picked up the fallen machine on the occasion mentioned, was a married solicitor of repute, living in the town. Within a fortnight afterwards, during which the young girl practised alone and tumbled about for an hour or two every day, an arrangement was made that Mr Lyttelhurst should call at Dulham with some of the other members, and take her for a short ride of some dozen miles.

Her uncle, of course, came out to see them go off, and the two elder ladies, who disapproved of the whole proceeding, peeped nevertheless from a bedroom window above. Lesbia, a little nervous at first, soon began to enjoy the ride, the men having chosen the most level among their regular routes, so that she had no occasion to dismount, and already she was able to run ‘legs over’ down some easy slopes that occurred now and then. ‘Their road took them right through Frogmore, the main street of which was macadam, in fairly good order. Lesbia kept her place steadily and carefully amid the traffic, which happened to be pretty thick, it being market day.

‘Capital, Miss Newman!’ exclaimed the man who had ridden next in rear of her through the town; ‘you got throught it all like an old Londoner. Half-an-hour in a town is worth half a day in the country for steadying you.’

‘Yes; you can’t sleep on your machine like an albatross on the wing, when an omnibus is skinning you on one side and a coal waggon on the other,’ replied Lesbia. ‘Which way are we going? I don’t know this side of Frogmore so well.’

‘Northward for the present,’ said Mr Lyttelhurst, who had dropped back to her side for a moment. ‘We shall pass through Wisprill, and then by Poplars Weir, where we shall find means of ferrying over the river, and so approach Dulham again from the north side.’

‘How far shall we have ridden altogether?’ she asked.

‘Nearly seventeen miles. That will be about enough for your first day.’

The road soon became continuously level as it ran along the side of a sparsely-wooded shallow vale, in the middle of which the gleam of water could be seen at intervals; further on, its course was marked by a series of clumps of poplars. The pace now increased, and in about three-quarters of an hour after clearing Frogmore, they passed through the little hamlet of Wisprill, and turned direct on the river where it was at its broadest, near the cascade of Poplars Weir. By so doing, they left the main road, which followed the stream, and made for one on the other side, which turned southwards toward Dulham. There was no bridge at or near this part, nothing but a huge antiquated covered barge, long disused for traffic, which lay fastened to the rail of the weir cascade. It was the summer abode of two watermen of the old stamp, who, when they could get nothing better to do, picked up coppers by ferrying people, and now and then a horse, over from one road to the other. For this purpose they had a couple of roomy but heavy punts, both of which, with their owners, happened to be on the opposite side when our bicyclists arrived and dismounted. Mr Lyttelhurst hailed them, and the two men, who were dozing in their respective punts, started to their feet and pushed off in such haste that as they shoved away with their backs to each other, the lumbering punts collided in midstream and both bargees were thrown off their feet, one so forcibly that he not only let go his pole into the water, but went partly in after it. Recovering himself and his pole with a struggle, he turned to his comrade a visage flaming with wrath, and out of the fulness of his heart spake unto him winged words.

‘Come, you fellows, I say, stop that now, can’t you?’ called out one of the bicyclists. ‘We're waiting to cross; you can have it out between you afterwards. Please look sharp!’

The two bargees, by no means in a hurry now, began to punt on slowly towards their fares, still keeping their scornful countenances half turned to each other, and resuming the dialogue, during which Lesbia kept her little red silk pocket-handkerchief pressed upon her mouth, choking with laughter. Some of her companions were at first inclined to feel annoyed on her account; but so far from looking uncomfortable and keeping in the background, the young girl was first to wheel her bicycle into the nearer of the two punts as they at last touched the bank. She then held out a shilling to each of the controversialists, saying,—

‘There, boys, that’s to drink to your next bit of friendly chat. You’ve given me a good shillings’-worth each, I can tell you.’

The two hulking men took the money with a look of wonder at the girl, somewhat shared, to tell the truth, by her companions.

‘Thankee, my lord,’ said one of the bargees, completely quieted down.

‘Yes, my lord, we'll drink your ’ealth and a pleasant ride to you,’ said the other. ‘Oi saay, Bill, oi vote we go and take the pledge in a gallon apiece at the White Cow, ah?’

‘Roight, Joe, oi’ll pledge yer,’ answered his partner.

And having got twopence from each of the other fares, making a nice little catch in all, the illustrious pair went off together to their beer, as good friends as if not a word had passed between them.

‘What a queer child she is!’ observed the man next him, in an undertone to Mr Lyttelhurst, as the group advanced to a spot suitable for re-mounting.

‘Very!’ was the reply. Then aloud to Lesbia:—‘I am glad, Miss Newman, that at all events you were not annoyed by the bad language of those two roughs.’

‘Annoyed!’ she exclaimed. ‘Bless you, I was delighted. Quite a treat to come across such refined sarcasm—the real Attic salt, you know. The only pity is we hadn’t a short-hand reporter to take it down word for word. But I’m thirsty with laughing. Is there any pub near?’

‘Yes, there’s the White Cow, where Messrs Bill and Joe are gone. But you needn’t follow them into the bar; the landlady will give you tea or beer or what you fancy in her private room.’

The ride home was pleasant; a light breeze at their backs and a smooth though narrow road helped the pace materially. The young men now felt that Lesbia Newman was a companion for them with whom they could be as much at ease as with each other, not a mere blush-and-simper sample of young-lady-stuff, keeping them in continual gêne. In little over an hour they reached Dulham, and as her friends declined to stop at the vicarage again that day, Lesbia entered the drawing-room just as her relatives were finishing afternoon tea.

‘Well, Lesbie, what sort of a ride, how far, and how did you perform?’

‘Jolly ride; about seventeen miles, Uncle Spines. I did as well as the rest, and we had a rare bit of fun at Poplars Weir. We were ferried over the water by Demosthenes and Cicero in person.’

‘Eh? How?’

Lesbia then gave extracts from the bargee record, which much amused the vicar, and much scandalised her mother and aunt.

‘This is your system of training girls, Theo, it seems!’ said his sister. ‘To send her out skylarking astride of a bicycle with a pack of roystering boys to hear bad language.’

‘I must tell Mr Lyttelhurst that you consider him a roystering boy,’ said the vicar, smiling.

‘But about the profane swearing, Theo,’ said his wife.

‘Oh, I assure you, Aunt Kate,’ said Lesbia suavely, ‘that the profane swearing was merely supplementary and ornamental—I should have just liked you and mamma to have heard the epithets those two bestowed on each other.’

‘Thank you kindly, Lesbia,’ said her mother; ‘I’d rather not.’

‘After all said and done,’ observed the vicar, ‘hard words break no bones. But when spoken before girls, they do break something else which it is most desirable should be broken.’

‘You mean their womanly delicacy,’ said Mrs Newman.

‘No, not quite that,’ he replied. ‘Not if you mean that delicacy which ought to be common to both sexes. But if you mean the prudish affectation which young ladies of the received pattern are taught to cultivate, then I say let it be annihilated at all costs—broken to atoms.’

Chapter IV

CHAPTER IV.

An Afternoon at Ruddymere.

Shortly after the occurrences of the previous chapter our four of Dulham vicarage were invited to a large garden party at the country seat of the Marquis of Humnoddie, a few miles distant. The Ruddymere people, like other county families of the neighbourhood, often drove over on a Sunday to hear Mr Bristley’s afternoon lectures, which were always on subjects suited to a cultivated audience. This common point of interest led to a genuine friendship, among the privileges of which Lady Humnoddie, who treated most matters as a joke, reckoned that of chaffing Lesbia about her advanced ideas.

Among the guests was a first cousin of the marchioness, Mr Athelstan Lockstable, a young man who, though not exactly silly, had a curious habit in society, that of dropping the thread of a remark he was in course of uttering, and so losing the bearings of the conversation around him, whilst he ransacked his memory, by the aid of expletives, to find the dropped thread, which he then suddenly sprang upon the company at the very moment most malapropos, regardless of the personality and the prejudices of anyone whom he could button-hole for the purpose, and overwhelm with a fresh batch of expletives expressive of his satisfaction at having caught his lost idea.

Lesbia’s bicycling costume having been perfected by the good taste of her uncle, was now very presentable; accordingly she rode her machine—a new 50-inch one—to Ruddymere, while the others drove in the pony-chaise.

‘Well, dear,’ said the hostess, taking the young girl’s hands in each of her own, ‘you do look sweetly manly to-day. I’ve heard of your doings on the bicycle; got it here, I suppose? Yes; and how are your friends of Frogmore? But, I say, don’t you mind people noticing you wherever you go?’

‘Not a bit, Lady Humnoddie; I’m getting quite a hardened, brazen character. But I get some encouragement too.’

‘Mostly from men, I suppose?’

‘No; I’m corresponding with the Reformed Dress Society, which is composed of ladies. I want to propose the institution of a girls’ bicycle club.’

‘Capital idea! but I suppose you’d reject tricycles with lofty contempt. I’m really thinking of a tandem for Hilda and Friga. My girls are both bitten by the mania. ‘I wish they weren't, but it can’t be helped. But, I say, Lesbie, is it your uncle’s fad or your own?’

‘His in the first place; mine now.’

‘Ah, I guessed as much. Mr Bristley is well known to be a heretic and a sinner.’

This was said in a voice intended to reach the person concerned, who was in an adjoining group.

‘I plead guilty to being a sinner, Lady Humnoddie,’ said he, coming forward, ‘otherwise I should be a better man than St Paul, who called himself the chief of sinners—and very accurately, considering the twaddle he always talked whenever he opened his mouth on the subject of women. But a heretic, no. I take a professional pride in keeping whole and undefiled the Catholic Faith, else without doubt I should perish everlastingly!’

Two of the other parsons of the neighbourhood, who were standing and talking with their backs to the group which the vicar of Dulham had joined, turned round and chuckled at the pompous tone of this last sentence.

‘Your ‘Catholic’ faith, Bristley,’ said one of them, who was an old friend of the Dulham family, ‘is a very whole one, we all know, and I suppose undefiled. It consists, if I mistake not, of uncompromising woman-worship. Well, why not? I’m devoted to the ladies myself. Eh, Lesbia?’

‘You! I’m afraid, Mr Smeeth,’ answered Lesbia, ‘that your precious devotion is mollycoddle.’

‘Pon my sawl—aw—that’s too bad, Miss Newman,’ put in Athelstan Lockstable, who had just joined them. ‘When all these ages poets have been singing the praises of Lawve, you know, and—’

‘Yes,’ she cut him short, ‘poets have been singing, and marriage bells have been ringing, and novel-writers have been scribbling, and nightingales have been dribbling, and troubadours have been sighing, and chaperones have been plying—it’s all quite too utterly awfully chawming, you know. But, for all that, the master passion’s rarely anything more noble that what I call mollycoddle.’

‘You're a funny girl, Lesbie,’ said Lady Humnoddie, ‘a very funny girl altogether.’

‘Perhaps so,’ answered Lesbia; ‘but though you'll say I’m young to judge, I don’t imagine I shall ever be much addicted to mollycoddle.’

‘But come, Lesbia, what is mollycoddle, after all? Do you apply that name to every kind of love?’ asked Mr Smeeth.

‘Oh! by no means, I do not call either tried affection or real woman-worship by that name. Mollycoddle is the feeling experienced by empty-headed young women and emptier-headed young men, when they flirt and spoon and go a courting, like that maiden all forlorn that waked the cock that lived under the thorn, that tossed the cow with the crumpled horn, that ate the dog, that swept the cat, that kissed the rat, that worried the house that Jack built.’

‘Dash my wig, Miss Newman, you're quite one of the —eh—ah—um—what the deuce, eh? what the devil, you know, eh? why, those old Greek whaddy-call’ems, demmy, why demmy, I'll be—.’ And Mr Lockstable subsided into a brown study.

‘So you’ve been to Rome, I understand, Lady Humnoddie,’ said Mrs Bristley, who had been taking tea on another part of the lawn and had come over just too late to hear Mr Lockstable’s commentary on his own text. ‘Were you disappointed in the Easter ceremonies, or not? I asked because my husband said he was a good deal disillusioned when he went about six years ago. I remember he called Holy Week at Rome stale, flat, and unprofitable.’

‘No, you don’t say so? I’m surprised at that, Mr Bristley,’ turning to him. ‘I thought it very novel and amusing. Didn’t you think the Pope’s choir sang well, and weren’t you interested in the vespers of those nuns at the Monte Carlo—I mean Trinita del Monte, up the steps there, you know, not far from the Piazza di San Pietro? I forget what order they belong to—not Benedictines, is it? the something—a—’

‘Amazons, demmy! why demmy, Amazons!’ shouted Mr Lockstable, facing his cousin, with a resounding slap on his thigh. ‘Amazons! demmy, Amazons. ‘There you are!’

Everyone stared.

‘An order of nuns called demi-Amazons!’ exclaimed Lady Humnoddie.

‘Aw, no—not an order of nuns,’ leisurely explained Mr Lockstable. ‘I was thinking of those strong-minded Greek charmers who were something after Miss Newman’s style, eh? But I say, if there ain’t Arthur Guineabush and his cousin Miss Dimpleton at the end of the lawn! I shall cut it, em con. I don’t want to be overwhelmed with any more of that young lady’s pious platitudes,—had enough of them and to spare on Sunday.’