Concerning Belinda (Short story index reprint series)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ...surely going? " " Yes, I'm going." " You've been very good to me. I shall remember today " "And I." He put a hand on each of her shoulders. " I'm forty-five and I'm--a fool. You've given me a happy day, little girl, but some way or other I'm more homesick than ever. I've had a vision--and I think I shall always be homesick now. Good-by. God bless you!" Belinda climbed the stairs to her room with a definite sense of loss in her heart. " Still," she admitted to herself, as she put the violets in water, " he was forty-five." THE BLIGHTED BEING CHAPTER VI THE BLIGHTED BEING KATHARINE HOLLAND was distinctly unpopular during her first weeks in the Ryder School. Miss Lucilla Ryder treated her courteously, but Miss Lucilla's courtesy had a frappe quality not conducive to heart expansion. Miss Emmeline showed even more than her usual gentle propitiatory kindliness toward the quiet, unresponsive girl, but kindliness from Miss Emmeline had the flavour of overtures from a faded daguerreotype or a sweetly smiling porcelain miniature. It was a slightly vague, impersonal, watery kindliness not calculated to draw a shy or sensitive girl from her reserve. The teachers, all save Belinda, voted Katharine difficult and unimpressionable. As for the girls, having tried the new pupil in the schoolgirl balance, and having found her lamentably wanting in appreciation of their friendliness, they promptly voted her " snippy," and vowed that she might mope as much as she pleased for all they cared--but that was before they knew that she was a " Blighted Being." The moment that the cause of Katharine's entrance info the school fold and of her listless melancholy was revealed to her schoolfellows, public opinion turned a double backsomersault and the girl became the centre of...