His clothes were very well cut but
his appearance was a little too elaborately simple. His sister, a girl of
about eighteen, was slim and dark also; she had the eager appearance of one
who has heard just enough to make her very anxious to hear a great deal
more.
One felt that she did not want to miss anything, but probably her
determination to be her father's daughter would prevent her from becoming
very valuable or intelligent.
Finally it was strange that Bobby had so completely escaped the shadow of
his father's mantle. These people were intended, of course, to be the
background of Peter's afternoon and it was therefore more than annoying
that that was the very last thing that they were. Millicent and Percival
made a ball and then flung it backwards and forwards throughout the affair.
Their mother watched them with appreciation and Alice Galleon, who knew
them, gave them tea and cake and let them have their way. Into the midst of
this Henry Galleon came--a little, round, fat man with a face like a map,
the body of Napoleon and a trot round the room like a very amiable pony,
eyes that saw everything, understood everything, and forgave everything, a
brown buff waistcoat with gilt buttons, white spats and a voice that rolled
and roared ... he was the tenderest, most alarming person in any kind of
a world. He was so gentle that any sparrow would trust him implicitly and
so terrific that an army would most certainly fly from before him.
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