Nurse Brennan, slight and fair, with the clearest of blue eyes, and a
Dresden china complexion--Larry was already artist enough to study and
adore the shadow of her white coif, with its subtle, reflected lights,
on her pink, rose-leaf cheek--and Mrs. Mangan, just a little
over-blown, but heavily, darkly handsome, with deep-lidded shadowy
eyes, and--as Master Coppinger pleased himself by discovering--a
slight suggestion of a luxurious Chesterfield sofa, upholstered in
rich cream velvet. When he was getting better, and the rigours of the
sick room were relaxing, these two provided him with interest and
entertainment of which they were delightfully unaware.
"Well, and what will I give him for his dinner to-day,
Norrse?"--(impossible to persuade the English alphabet to disclose
Mrs. Mangan's pronunciation of this word)--his hostess would say,
drifting largely into Larry's room, and seating herself on the side of
his bed.
"Don't be making an invalid of him at all, Mrs. Mangan!" Nurse Brennan
would rejoin briskly; "I'm just telling him I'd be sorry to get a
thump from that old wrist of his, he and the Doctor think so much
about! And he hasn't as much as a point of temperature those three
days!"
"Oh, I say, Nurse!" Larry would protest, "then why won't you let me
get up?"
"Be quite now"--(in Ireland the "e" in "quiet" is not infrequently
thus transposed)--"and don't be bothering me, like a good child!"
Nurse would reply, with a sidelong flash of her charming eyes, a
recognition of Larry's age and sex that atoned for the opprobrious
epithet.
Pages:
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93