Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined

further conversation. I watched her for nearly half-an-hour:

during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew

momently darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of

disappointment. She had obviously not heard anything to her

advantage: and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and

taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed

indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had

been made her.

Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared

not go alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was

opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much

pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Sam's calves must have

ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great

difficulty, extorted from the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait

upon her in a body.

Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram's had been: we heard

hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library;

and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and

came running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of

their wits.

"I am sure she is something not right!" they cried, one and all.

"She told us such things! She knows all about us!" and they sank

breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring

them.

Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of

things they had said and done when they were mere children;

described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home:

keepsakes that different relations had presented to them. They

affirmed that she had even divined their thoughts, and had whispered

in the ear of each the name of the person she liked best in the

world, and informed them of what they most wished for.

Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further

enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only

blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their

importunity. The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and

wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their

concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder

gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the

agitated fair ones.

In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully

engaged in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I

turned, and saw Sam.

"If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young

single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears

she will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be you:

there is no one else for it. What shall I tell her?"




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