The Tenants of Malory

the question that the quiet old lady there could bring a mad girl to church with her. And thus resolved, Cleve walked out of the coffee-room, and awaiting his conveyance, stood on th

Cardyllian that he does

the attorney, looking over his fat shoulder, arrested

nd some more questions ensued, a

ry’s let

attorney, with

the bargain, I s

pend a shilling on it, and we must only take what we ca

o has t

rend Isaa

. Why old Dixie’s

hing — rather. Drove a hard bargain — bu

he live

leman and two ladies; on

gentleman’s name, an

trouble to find out. “The Reverend Isaac Dixie’s the tenant, and Miss Sheckleton manages the fami

wife, over the way, says the g

It’s just possible, you know, there may be a screw loose in the upper works; but I don’t believe it, and don’t for the world hint it to the old la

d. By Jove, you do. I kn

good-humoured attorney, with Dundreary whiskers, leaning on the wooden p

as well tell me all you know. And you do know; of course, you do; yo

d you want to pick up all about her, by w

aughed,

I didn’t know it myself. But is the old fel

as Solomon, or as mad as a hatter, for anything I know. It’s nothing to me. He’s only a visit

Dixie li

old s

ce together in Malory — do you remember? I dare say he does. He was tutor and I pupil. Charming time. We used to read in the gun-room. That was the year they had the bricklayers and painters at Ware. Do you remember the day you came in exactly as I shied the ink-bottle at his head? I dare s

waved his farewell, and, with a groom behind him, drov

r turn, he thought mistily of his political possibilities, for he had been three years in the House, and was looked upon as a clever young

pose a town life — a life of vice, a life of any sort, has power to

e, hung, like the sombre and glowing phantasms of a cloudy sunset, the story of the romance, and the follies and the crimes of generations of the Verneys

ing gaze, used to thrill him with “a pleasing terror.” He liked her, and yet he would have been afraid to sit alone in her latticed room with that silent lady, after twilight. Poor old Rebecca! It was eight years since he had last seen her tall, sad, silent form — silent, except when she thought herself alone, and used to whisper and babble as

poor thing, she is— for my grandmother would never think of disturbing he

he dower-house, with which, indeed, it was connected. “It won’t be like crossing their windows or knocking

gent had the face that appeared in

ays accepted her presence as he did that of the trees, and urns, and old lead statues in the yew walk, as one of the properties of Malory. She was a sort of friend or client of his grandmother’s — not an old servant plainly, not even a

valled estuary flanked by towering headlands, and old Pendillion, whose distant outline shews like a gigantic sphinx crouching lazily at the brink of the sea. Across the water now he sees the old town of Cardyllian, the church towe