The Green Mummy

Name: The Green Mummy
Author: Fergus Hume

by Fergus Hume

Pages: about 319
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 5.8 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 3.3 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

“I don't think it is one which needs answering,” said the young man lightly; “there are more important things to talk about than pounds, shillings, and sordid pence.”
“Love, on a day such as this is. Look at the sky, blue as your eyes; at the sunshine, golden as your hair.”
“Lucy, you are a--woman. That money did not buy your love, but the consent of your step-father to our marriage. Had I not humored his whim, he would have insisted upon your marrying Random.”
“Well, I don't know. Random is a soldier and a baronet; handsome and agreeable, with a certain amount of talent. What objection can you find to such a match?”
“H'm, the adjective appears to be an afterthought,” grumbled the bachelor; then, when she merely laughed teasingly after the manner of women, he added moodily:
“No, by Jove, Random isn't me, by any manner of means. I am but a poor artist without fame or position, struggling on three hundred a year for a grudging recognition.”
“What! when I am engaged to you? Actions speak much louder than remarks, Mr. Archibald Hope. I love you more than I do money.”
“You said that I was a woman just now. What do, you mean?”
“This,” and he kissed her willing lips in the lane, which was empty save for blackbirds and beetles. “Is any explanation a clear one?”
“Not to an angel, who requires adoration, but to a woman who--Let us walk on, Archie, or we shall be late for dinner.”
The young man smiled and frowned and sighed and laughed in the space of thirty seconds--something of a feat in the way of emotional gymnastics. The freakish feminine nature perplexed him as it had perplexed Adam, and he could not understand this rapid change from poetry to prose. How could it be otherwise, when he was but five-and-twenty, and engaged for the first time?

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The Green Mummy

From the opening

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