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Charlemont; Or, the Pride of the Village. a Tale of Kentucky by William Gilmore Simms
page 184 of 518 (35%)
as if the topic was of a nature to arrest the feet and demand the
whole fixed attention of the hearer.

It will be conjectured that Alfred Stevens had pressed his opportunities
with no little industry. Enough has been shown to account for the
readiness of that reception which Margaret Cooper was prepared to
give him. Her intelligence was keen, quick, and penetrating. She
discovered at a glance, not his hypocrisy, but that his religious
enthusiasm was not of a sort to become very tyrannical. The air of
mischief which was expressed upon his face when the venerable John
Cross proposed to purge her library of its obnoxious contents,
commended him to her as a sort of ally; and the sympathy with
herself, which such a conjecture promised, made her forgetful of
the disingenuousness of his conduct if her suspicions were true.
But there were some other particulars which, in her mind, tended to
dissipate the distance between them. She recognised the individual.
She remembered the bold, dashing youth, who, a few months before,
had encountered her on the edge of the village, and, after they
had parted, had ridden back to the spot where she still loitered,
for a second look. To that very spot had she conducted him on their
ramble that afternoon.

"Do you know this place, Mr. Stevens?" she demanded with an arch
smile, sufficiently good-humored to convince the adventurer that,
if she had any suspicions, they were not of a nature to endanger
his hopes.

"Do I not!" he said, with an air of EMPRESSMENT which caused her
to look down.

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