"' In
fact, this family calamity was rather a cheerful subject among
Devereux's friends; and certainly Devereux had no reason to love that
vicious, selfish old lunatic, Lord Athenry, who in his prodigal and
heartless reign, before straw and darkness swallowed him, never gave the
boy a kind word or gentle look, and owed him a mortal grudge because he
stood near the kingdom, and wrote most damaging reports of him at the
end of the holidays, and despatched those letters of Bellerophon by the
boy's own hand to the schoolmaster, with the natural results.
When Aunt Rebecca rustled into the ring that was gathered round about
the fiddles and tambourine, she passed Miss Magnolia very near, with a
high countenance, and looking straight before her, and with no more
recognition than the tragedy queen bestows upon the painted statue on
the wing by which she enters. And Miss Mag followed her with a titter
and an angry flash of her eyes. So Aunt Rebecca made up to the little
hillock--little bigger than a good tea-cake--on which the dowager was
perched in a high-backed chair, smiling over the dancers with a splendid
benignity, and beating time with her fat short foot.
Pages:
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273