Manchurian Books

She was one of those elfin, rather precocious little
girls, quick coloured, with dark hair, naturally curling dusky hair
that was sometimes astray over her eyes, and eyes that were sometimes
impishly dark, and sometimes a clear brown yellow. And from the very
outset, after a most cursory attention to Rabbits, she decided that the
only really interesting thing at the tea-table was myself.
The elders talked in their formal dull way--telling Nannie the trite
old things about the park and the village that they told every one, and
Beatrice watched me across the table with a pitiless little curiosity
that made me uncomfortable.
"Nannie," she said, pointing, and Nannie left a question of my mother's
disregarded to attend to her; "is he a servant boy?"
"S-s-sh," said Nannie. "He's Master Ponderevo."
"Is he a servant boy?" repeated Beatrice.
"He's a schoolboy," said my mother.
"Then may I talk to him, Nannie?"
Nannie surveyed me with brutal inhumanity. "You mustn't talk too much,"
she said to her charge, and cut cake into fingers for her.


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