A House to Let by Adelaide Anne Procter;Charles Dickens;Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell;Wilkie Collins
page 7 of 126 (05%)
page 7 of 126 (05%)
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the fifth of November morning, staring at the House through my glasses,
as if I had never looked at it before. All at once--in the first-floor window on my right--down in a low corner, at a hole in a blind or a shutter--I found that I was looking at a secret Eye. The reflection of my fire may have touched it and made it shine; but, I saw it shine and vanish. The eye might have seen me, or it might not have seen me, sitting there in the glow of my fire--you can take which probability you prefer, without offence--but something struck through my frame, as if the sparkle of this eye had been electric, and had flashed straight at me. It had such an effect upon me, that I could not remain by myself, and I rang for Flobbins, and invented some little jobs for her, to keep her in the room. After my breakfast was cleared away, I sat in the same place with my glasses on, moving my head, now so, and now so, trying whether, with the shining of my fire and the flaws in the window-glass, I could reproduce any sparkle seeming to be up there, that was like the sparkle of an eye. But no; I could make nothing like it. I could make ripples and crooked lines in the front of the House to Let, and I could even twist one window up and loop it into another; but, I could make no eye, nor anything like an eye. So I convinced myself that I really had seen an eye. Well, to be sure I could not get rid of the impression of this eye, and it troubled me and troubled me, until it was almost a torment. I don't think I was previously inclined to concern my head much about the opposite House; but, after this eye, my head was full of the house; and I thought of little else than the house, and I watched the house, and I talked about the house, and I dreamed of the house. In all this, I fully believe now, there was a good Providence. But, you will judge for |
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