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Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan, 1814-1873

"Uncle Silas A Tale of Bartram-Haugh"

Come up,
will you? Would you like to come in first and talk a bit wi' the governor?
Father, you know, he's a bit silly, he is, this while.' I found that
the phrase meant only _bodily_ infirmity. 'He took a pain o' Friday,
newralgie--something or other he calls it--rheumatics it is when it takes
old "Giblets" there; and he's sitting in his own room; or maybe you'd like
better to come to your bedroom first, for it is dirty work travelling, they
do say.'
Yes; I preferred the preliminary adjustment. Mary Quince was standing
behind me; and as my voluble kinswoman talked on, we had each ample time
and opportunity to observe the personnel of the other; and she made no
scruple of letting me perceive that she was improving it, for she stared me
full in the face, taking in evidently feature after feature; and she felt
the material of my mantle pretty carefully between her finger and thumb,
and manually examined my chain and trinkets, and picked up my hand as she
might a glove, to con over my rings.
I can't say, of course, exactly what impression I may have produced on her.
But in my cousin Milly I saw a girl who looked younger than her years,
plump, but with a slender waist, with light hair, lighter than mine, and
very blue eyes, rather round; on the whole very good-looking.


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