I stood motionless before it while
the rich, warm light of evening bathed it in a rosy radiance. And
when the twilight shadows fell upon it, and when the moon again lit
it up, I stood there still. The face seemed to pass into my very
being, and Sinfi's voice kept singing in my ears, 'Fenella Stanley's
dead and dust, and that's why she can make you put that cross in
your feyther's tomb, and she will, she will.'
I left the picture and went into the library: for I bethought me of
that sheaf of Fenella's letters to my great-grandfather which he had
kept so sacredly, and which had come to me as representative of the
family. My previous slight inspection of them had shown me what a
wonderful woman she was, how full of ideas the most original and the
most wild. The moment a Gypsy-woman has been taught to write there
comes upon her a passion for letter-writing.
Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between the
illiterate locutions and the eccentric orthography of Fenella's
letters and the subtle remarks and speculations upon the symbols of
nature.
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