The Child Left Behind Read Online Free PDF

dreamy expression on your face that I suspect you maybe in love,’ the captain continued.
    Finn bent his head to hide the blush, but he was too late and Hamilton burst out, ‘By Jove, that’s it, isn’t it? I’ve hit the nail on the head. You’ve fallen for someone.’
    ‘Oh, no, sir. Nothing like that,’ Finn said rather forlornly. ‘I have just seen a girl I think is so very beautiful. She was with a man I presumed to be her father, but I haven’t spoken to her or anything.’
    ‘So you don’t know who it is you’ve lost your heart to?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘Describe her to me,’ the captain commanded.
    ‘Oh, sir, she is just wonderful,’ Finn cried. ‘She has dark hair and it hangs down her back and it rippled and shone in the autumn sunlight, and she had a pert little nose, and her eyes set her face alight, and her blushes only make her more attractive.’
    Hamilton laughed gently. ‘You have got it bad,’ he said. ‘Did you take any notice of the man?’
    ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Finn said. ‘I took particular note of him because I couldn’t see how he had fathered such a good-looking girl.’
    ‘He wouldn’t win any beauty contest then?’
    ‘No, sir,’ said Finn with a chuckle. ‘He is quite tall and portly, and he has a fine head of hair though it is steel grey, but his face has a sort of forbidding look about it. His eyes look almost hooded, his nose is long and his mouth wide, though not much of it could be seen because he sported a large moustache that was as grey as the hair on his head.’
    ‘Now,’ said Hamilton, ‘a word of warning. You steer well clear of that girl and you can take that look off your face, man. I was young myself once and I know what it is to yearn after a woman who is unattainable—and believe me, Gabrielle Jobert is as unattainable as they come.’
    ‘Gabrielle,’ Finn breathed, thinking the name suited that lovely creature so well.
    Hamilton nodded. ‘I am pretty certain that is who she is from the description that you have given me of her father. Pierre Jobert is an unpleasant and ugly kind of character and he rules those girls—even his wife, Mariette, so it’s said—with a rod of iron. I have seen that for myself. The girls are seldom out alone and what he is protecting them from are the lusty British soldier boys strutting about the place. Lay a hand onMiss Jobert, and her father, in all likelihood, would tear you from limb to limb.’
    ‘Believe me, sir, I mean her no harm,’ Finn muttered earnestly.
    ‘Of course you do, man,’ Hamilton said. ‘What you would really like to do is take her out for a tumble in the nearest available cornfield.’
    ‘No, sir.’ Finn was shocked.
    ‘Then you are not the man that I took you to be,’ Hamilton replied. ‘I recognise the feeling running through you well. The point is, Sullivan, frustration doesn’t bode well in a soldier. You have to have your wits about you on the battlefield. There is no place there for mooning over a girl you have a fantasy about.’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘Isn’t there another you can take up with?’
    ‘I was warned not to touch those girls, sir.’
    ‘Not the camp followers, no,’ Hamilton said. ‘But there might be others in the town not so well guarded or regarded, who might welcome a dalliance with a soldier. Believe me, when you have a real live girl in your arms you will get over this fixation on Gabrielle Jobert.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ Finn said. He knew, though, no matter what he said, he wouldn’t go looking for any girl in the town. When a person has seen perfection first-hand, he is not likely to settle for second best.
    ‘Anyway,’ Hamilton went on after a while, ‘Jobert may be no oil painting, but I have it on good authority that he just happens to be the bestbaker in the town and so that is where I want you to go now. His shop is on Rue Allen and his name is above the shop, along with the word “ Boulangerie ”, which means baker. See, I have written it down for