'
She was going out of the room when I exclaimed, in sheer desperation,
'Mother, I have something else to say to you. You remember the little
girl, the little blue-eyed girl, Wynne's daughter, who came here
once, and you were so kind to her, so gracious and so kind'; and I
seized her hand and covered it with kisses, for I was beside myself
with alarm lest my one hope should go.'
The sudden little laugh of bitter scorn that came from my mother's
lips, the sudden spasm that shook her frame, the sudden shadow as of
night that swept across her features, should at once have hushed my
confession. But I went on: my tongue would not stop now: I felt that
my eloquence, the eloquence of Winifred's danger, must conquer, must
soften even the hard pride of her race.
'And she has never forgotten your graciousness to her, mother.'
'Well?' said my mother, in a tone whose velvet softness withered me.
'Well, mother, she is in all things the very opposite of her father.
This very night she told me'--and I was actually on the verge of
repeating poor Winifred's prattle about her resembling her mother,
and not her father (for already my brain had succumbed to the force
of the oncoming fever, and the catastrophe I was dreading made of me
a frank and confiding child).
Pages:
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224