Night and Morning, Volume 3 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 148 of 156 (94%)
page 148 of 156 (94%)
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"Will you die too?" she asked once; the old man understood her not, and she did not try to explain. Early one morning, some days after Morton was gone, they missed her: she was not in the house, nor the dull yard where she was sometimes dismissed and told to play--told in vain. In great alarm the old man accused Mrs. Boxer of having spirited her away, and threatened and stormed so loudly that the woman, against her will, went forth to the search. At last she found the child in the churchyard, standing wistfully beside a tomb. "What do you here, you little plague?" said Mrs. Boxer, rudely seizing her by the arm. "This is the way they will both come back some day! I dreamt so!" "If ever I catch you here again!" said the housekeeper, and, wiping her brow with one hand, she struck the child with the other. Fanny had never been struck before. She recoiled in terror and amazement, and, for the first time since her arrival, burst into tears. "Come--come, no crying! and if you tell master I'll beat you within an inch of your life!" So saying, she caught Fanny in her arms, and, walking about, scolding and menacing, till she had frightened back the child's tears, she returned triumphantly to the house, and bursting into the parlour, exclaimed, "Here's the little darling, sir!" When old Simon learned where the child had been found he was glad; for it was his constant habit, whenever the evening was fine, to glide out to that churchyard--his dog his guide--and sit on his one favourite spot opposite the setting sun. This, not so much for the sanctity of the |
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