'And is _she_ civil?' he asked.
No, she certainly was not; a most disagreeable old woman, with a vein of
wickedness. I thought I had heard her swearing.
'They don't seem to be a very engaging lot,' said Doctor Bryerly;' but
where there's one, there will be more. See here, I was just reading a
passage,' and he opened the little volume at the place where his finger
marked it, and read for me a few sentences, the purport of which I well
remember, although, of course, the words have escaped me.
It was in that awful portion of the book which assumes to describe the
condition of the condemned; and it said that, independently of the physical
causes in that state operating to enforce community of habitation, and an
isolation from superior spirits, there exist sympathies, aptitudes,
and necessities which would, of themselves, induce that depraved
gregariousness, and isolation too. 'And what of the rest of the servants,
are they better?' he resumed.
We saw little or nothing of the others, except of old 'Giblets,' the
butler, who went about like a little automaton of dry bones, poking here
and there, and whispering and smiling to himself as he laid the cloth; and
seeming otherwise quite unconscious of an external world.
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