Quite a lot of people do not like Flora Ackroyd, but nobody can help admiring

her. And to her friends she can be very charming. The first thing that strikes

you about her is her extraordinary fairness. She has the real Scandinavian pale

gold hair. Her eyes are blue—blue as the waters of a Norwegian fiord, and her

skin is cream and roses. She has square, boyish shoulders and slight hips. And

to a jaded medical man it is very refreshing to come across such perfect health.

 

A simple straight-forward English girl—I may be old-fashioned, but I think the

genuine article takes a lot of beating.

 

Flora joined me by the silver table, and expressed heretical doubts as to King

Charles I ever having worn the baby shoe.

 

“And anyway,” continued Miss Flora, “all this making a fuss about things because

some one wore or used them seems to me all nonsense.

 

They’re not wearing or using them now. The pen that George Eliot wrote _The Mill

on the Floss_ with—that sort of thing—well, it’s only just a pen after all. If

you’re really keen on George Eliot, why not get _The Mill on the Floss_ in a

cheap edition and read it.”

 

“I suppose you never read such old out-of-date stuff, Miss Flora?”

 

“You’re wrong, Dr. Sheppard. I love _The Mill on the Floss_.”