On the whole, these terms were better than a perpetual skirmish; but,
notwithstanding all her gossip and friendliness, I continued to have a
profound distrust and even terror of her.
She seemed curious about the Bartram-Haugh family, and all their ways, and
listened darkly when I spoke. I told her, bit by bit, the whole story of
Dudley, and she used, whenever there was news of the Seamew, to read the
paragraph for my benefit; and in poor Milly's battered little Atlas she
used to trace the ship's course with a pencil, writing in, from point to
point, the date at which the vessel was 'spoken' at sea. She seemed amused
at the irrepressible satisfaction with which I received these minutes of
his progress; and she used to calculate the distance;--on such a day he was
two hundred and sixty miles, on such another five hundred; the last point
was more than eight hundred--good, better, best--best of all would be those
'deleecious antipode, w'ere he would so soon promener on his head twelve
thousand mile away;' and at the conceit she would fall into screams of
laughter.
Laugh as she might, however, there was substantial comfort in thinking
of the boundless stretch of blue wave that rolled between me and that
villainous cousin.
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