'
'But he _has_ consented--not immediately indeed, but in a short time, when
his affairs are settled.'
'_Lanternes_! They will never be settle,' said Madame.
'At all events, for the present I am to go to France. Milly seems very
happy, and I dare say I shall like it too. I am very glad to leave
Bartram-Haugh, at all events.'
'But your uncle weel bring you back there,' said Madame, drily.
'It is doubtful whether he will ever return to Bartram himself,' I said.
'Ah!' said Madame, with a long-drawn nasal intonation, 'you theenk I hate
you. You are quaite wrong, my dear Maud. I am, on the contrary, very much
interested for you--I am, I assure you, dear a cheaile.'
And she laid her great hand, with joints misshapen by old chilblains, upon
the back of mine. I looked up in her face. She was not smiling. On the
contrary, her wide mouth was drawn down at the corners ruefully, as before,
and she gazed on my face with a scowl from her abysmal eyes.
I used to think the flare of that irony which lighted her face so often
immeasurably worse than any other expression she could assume; but this
lack-lustre stare and dismal collapse of feature was more wicked still.
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