There was for example Amanda the Dog Mistress, with an
astonishing tact and understanding of dogs, who could explain dogs
and the cock of their ears and the droop of their tails and their
vanity and their fidelity, and why they looked up and why they
suddenly went off round the corner, and their pride in the sound of
their voices and their dastardly thoughts and sniffing
satisfactions, so that for the first time dogs had souls for Benham
to see. And there was an Amanda with a striking passion for the
sleekness and soft noses of horses. And there was an Amanda
extremely garrulous, who was a biographical dictionary and critical
handbook to all the girls in the school she had attended at
Chichester--they seemed a very girlish lot of girls; and an Amanda
who was very knowing--knowing was the only word for it--about
pictures and architecture. And these and all the other Amandas
agreed together to develop and share this one quality in common,
that altogether they pointed to no end, they converged on nothing.
She was, it grew more and more apparent, a miscellany bound in a
body.
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