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Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan, 1814-1873

"Uncle Silas A Tale of Bartram-Haugh"


'Wy do I?--I do not understand a you; there is _no_ particular day--wat
folly! Wy I like Church Scarsdale? Well, it is such pretty place. There is
all! Wat leetle fool! I suppose you think I want to keel a you and bury you
in the churchyard?'
And she laughed, and it would not have been a bad laugh for a ghoul.
'Come, my dearest Maud, you are not a such fool to say, if _you_ tell me me
go thees a way, I weel go that; and if you say, go that a way, I weel go
thees--you are rasonable leetle girl--come along--_alons donc_--we shall av
soche agreeable walk--weel a you?'
But I was immovable. It was neither obstinacy nor caprice, but a profound
fear that governed me. I was then afraid--yes, _afraid_. Afraid of _what_?
Well, of going with Madame de la Rougierre to Church Scarsdale that day.
That was all. And I believe that instinct was true.
She turned a bitter glance toward Church Scarsdale, and bit her lip. She
saw that she must give it up. A shadow hung upon her drab features. A
little scowl--a little sneer--wide lips compressed with a false smile, and
a leaden shadow mottling all. Such was the countenance of the lady who only
a minute or two before had been smiling and murmuring over the stile so
amiably with her idiomatic 'blarney,' as the Irish call that kind of
blandishment.


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