"There is no proof which
you would be likely to appreciate, except the needle marks on the tip
of her forefinger. Then, my supposition perfectly accounts for her
paleness, her nervousness, and her wretched fragility. Poor thing!
She has been stifled with the heat of a salamander stove, in a small,
close room, and has drunk coffee, and fed upon doughnuts, raisins,
candy, and all such trash, till she is scarcely half alive; and so,
as she has hardly any physique, a poet like Mr. Miles Coverdale may
be allowed to think her spiritual."
"Look at her now!" whispered I.
Priscilla was gazing towards us with an inexpressible sorrow in her
wan face and great tears running down her cheeks. It was difficult
to resist the impression that, cautiously as we had lowered our
voices, she must have overheard and been wounded by Zenobia's
scornful estimate of her character and purposes.
"What ears the girl must have!" whispered Zenobia, with a look of
vexation, partly comic and partly real. "I will confess to you that
I cannot quite make her out. However, I am positively not an
ill-natured person, unless when very grievously provoked,--and as you,
and especially Mr. Hollingsworth, take so much interest in this odd
creature, and as she knocks with a very slight tap against my own
heart likewise,--why, I mean to let her in. From this moment I will
be reasonably kind to her. There is no pleasure in tormenting a
person of one's own sex, even if she do favor one with a little more
love than one can conveniently dispose of; and that, let me say, Mr.
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