[Gutenberg 60613] • Lover and Husband: A Novel

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ...being laughed at, ' he replied; 'though who does, I wonder? However, I don't laugh at people for the sort of thing you mean--superstitions, they are generally called, I suppose. A very easy term to class together under all the things we cannot understand! I see you are very superstitious, Mrs. Marshall; but we'll have a talk about that at some other less witching time. In the mean time, I wish you would tell me exactly what your sister was about this afternoon, and what reason you have to be uneasy about her. Talking won't make us get over the ground slower. You couldn't keep up a faster pace than this all the way to The Feathers. Besides, I want to hear all you can tell me. It may be wasting time to go to look for her at home.' So Eleanor told him all the particulars: Georgie's complaining of being tired; their expedition to the church, and the child's establishment on the bench with her fairy-tales to wait for the half-hour striking; her non-appearance at the Blands', or back again at home before her sister left for the Court; and last, though evidently far from least in Mrs. Marshall's estimation, the truly womanly and certainly unanswerable argument of her own instinctive conviction throughout the evening, that something was wrong with the little girl. Before this they had emerged from the darkness of the closely-planted shrubbery, and were now hastening along the church path, where the less thickly growing trees allowed the moonlight to show them their way almost as clearly as by day. Mr. Chesney stopped short for a moment when Eleanor left off speaking, and turned round so as to face her. His pale face looked almost ghastly in the cold blue light, and his dark hair and eyebrows increased the peculiar appearance. At first Mrs...