At one time he had made up his mind to be peremptory--and politely to
demand an unequivocal 'yes,' or 'no.' But a letter reached him from
London; it was from a great physician there. Whatever was in it, the
effect was to relieve his mind of an anxiety. He never, indeed, looked
anxious, or moped like an ordinary man in blue-devils. But his servants
knew when anything weighed upon his spirits, by his fierce, short,
maniacal temper. But with the seal of that letter the spell broke, the
evil spirit departed for a while, and the old jocose, laconic irony came
back, and glittered whitely in the tall chair by the fire, and sipped
its claret after dinner, and sometimes smoked its long pipe and grinned
into the embers of the grate. At Belmont, there had been a skirmish over
the broiled drum-sticks at supper, and the ladies had withdrawn in
towering passions to their nightly devotions and repose.
Gertrude had of late grown more like herself, but was quite resolute
against the Dangerfield alliance, which Aunt Becky fought for, the more
desperately that in their private confidences under the poplar trees she
had given the rich cynic of the silver spectacles good assurance of
success.
Pages:
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578