It is impossible to believe that Eustace was ever at any pains to
conceal the effects of this astral phenomenon from his family, for its
members were very quickly excited. If in that vale the woman-call could
be heard by ears attuned to its haunting cadences, so also did the
frightened mother-call echo its equally primitive note, accompanied by
the less well-known sister-call of warning and distress.
The truth is that Eustace was becoming harder to manage with each
recurring crisis. For testimony in the present instance, I need only
adduce that he wrote poetry, more or less, after meeting Miss Lansdale
but a scant half-dozen times. This came to me in confidence, however,
and the obliquity of it spread no farther beyond the family lines.
Fluttering with alarm, the mother of Eustace approached me as one
presumably familiar with the power of the Lansdales to work disaster in
a peaceful and orderly family. She sought to know if I could not prevent
her boy from "making a fool of himself." It was never her way to bother
with many words when she knew the right few.
With an air that signified her intention of letting me know the worst at
once, Mrs. Eubanks drew from her bead reticule a sheet of paper
scribbled over in the handwriting of her misguided offspring.
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