She was getting much excited. "I think I had better leave her now,"

said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed.

"Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards

night--in the morning she is calmer."

I rose. "Stop!" exclaimed Mrs. Reed, "there is another thing I

wished to say. He threatens me--he continually threatens me with

his own death, or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid

out with a great wound in his throat, or with a swollen and

blackened face. I am come to a strange pass: I have heavy

troubles. What is to be done? How is the money to be had?"

Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative draught:

she succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more

composed, and sank into a dozing state. I then left her.

More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with

her. She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor

forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I

got on as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very

cold, indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing,

reading, or writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her

sister. Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her canary bird by the

hour, and take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem at

a loss for occupation or amusement: I had brought my drawing

materials with me, and they served me for both.

Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to

take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in

sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened

momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of

imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon,

and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and

a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an

elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-

bloom One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was

to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it

a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a

broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage:

that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill

it with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be

traced under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined

nose, with a straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-

looking mouth, by no means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided

cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black whiskers were

wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above

the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had left them to the last,

because they required the most careful working. I drew them large;

I shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the

irids lustrous and large. "Good! but not quite the thing," I

thought, as I surveyed the effect: "they want more force and

spirit;" and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might

flash more brilliantly--a happy touch or two secured success.

There, I had a friend's face under my gaze; and what did it signify

that those young ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it; I

smiled at the speaking likeness: I was absorbed and content.




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