I knew that the woman was still speaking,
but for a time I heard no sound--my senses could receive no
impressions save from the sinister eloquence of the dead and yet
living matter around me. Not an object there that did not seem
charged with the wicked message of the heartless Fates.
At length, and as I stood upon the doorstep, a trembling, a mighty
expectance, seized me like an ague-fit; and I heard myself saying, 'I
am come to see the body, Mrs. Gudgeon.' Then I saw her peer,
blinking, into my face, as she said,
'Oh, oh, it's _you_, is it? It's one o' the lot as keeps the
studeros, is it?--the cussed Chelsea lot as killed her. I recklet yer
a-starin' at the goddess Joker! So you've come to see my poor
darter's body, are you? How werry kind, to be sure! Pray come in,
gentleman, an' pray let the beautiful goddess Joker be perlite an'
show sich a nice kind wisiter the way upstairs.'
She took a candle, and with a mincing, mocking movement, curtseying
low at every step, she backed before me, and then stood waiting at
the foot of the staircase with a drunken look of satire on her
features.
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