Wylder's Hand

orcas Bran

and Chelford had nearly ended that irregular repast when we entered. My chair was beside Miss Brandon; she had br

t the distance had positively increased since yesterday, and that the oftener she met me the more strange she became. As we went out, Wylder enquired, with his usual good taste: ‘Well, what do you think of her?’ Then he looked slily at me, laughing, with his hands in his pockets. ‘A little bit slow, eh?’ he whispered, and laughed again, and lounged into the hall. If Dorcas Brandon had been a plain woman, I think she would have been voted an impertin

resseron, in the drawing-room, while I sh

d on and I ac

, that you remembered me when an infant. You

g, or to talk to me. I seized the occasion, and gave her, as well as I could, the sad and pretty picture

iest tones hover musically in the distance; how far away, how near to silence, yet how clear! And so it is with our remembrance of the immortal part. It is the loveliest traits that remain with us perennially; all that was noblest and most beau

terested me strangely. I suppose she knew I was looking at her; but she showed always a queenlike indifference about what people might think or observe. There was no sentimental softening; but her gaze was such as I once saw the same pr

the picture in my

eally very

I dare say, exact as it is, it would give to one who had not seen her a false, as it must an inadequate, idea, of the original. There

intelligence were very beautiful. It w

then it returned to the picture, which was again in her hand. There was a total want of interest in the careless sort of surprise she vouchsafed my little sally; neither was there the slightest resentment. If a wafer had been stuck upon my forehead, and she had observed it, there might have been j

towards this lady, who either was, or seemed to me, so singular, a mysterious inter

ome — so passively disdainful. I think if she had listened to me with even the faintest intimation of caring whether I spoke in t

s with decorum. But she was looking, just as before, at the miniature, as it seemed to me, in fancy infusing some of the s

moving her eyes from the miniature, ‘You are, I believe, Mr.

r very considerable interval, at the end of which she shut the miniature in its case, she said, ‘It was a peculiar face, and very beautiful. It is odd how many of our family marri

not an opportunity of making her acquaintance yes

just come in, and was tumbling ove

med to discover something uncommonly interesting or clever in the illustration before him

ul who sacrificed themselves so — they were all unhappy marriages. So the beauty of our family never availed it, any more than its talents and its courage;

ugh so many centuries, to have retained your ancestral estates, and your pre-eminent

to last. Ovid tells us, in his ‘Fasti,’ how statues sometimes surprised people by speaking more frankly and to the purpose even tha

r thoughts was flowing; like other representatives of a dynasty, she had studied the history of he

end; so I took up a book, put it down, and then went and looked over Wylder’s shoulder, and made my criticisms — not very novel, I fear

tanley Lake now

though — about a fortnight ago; he was

his book. He spoke in a sort of undertone, like a man who does not want to be overheard, and the

it for many things. He knows something of

said Wylder, with a sort of sneer or laugh. I t

live upon, without addin

ed in his pockets, and the air of a man trying to look un

aken, of course; he’s always been very civil to me, but we don’t like one another; and I don’t think I

‘I was not aware he

r Stanley. He’s about the greatest liar, I th

reading it, but her large eyes were looking over it, and on us, in the glass, with a gaze of strange curiosity. Our glances met in the mirror; but hers remain

with a sneer, ‘he was askin

e; but I suppose he does not like you less for what h

eth, with a vicious character of biting it, which was peculiar to him whe

o, of her father’s — I don’t know exactly how. He’s a pushing fellow, one of the coolest hands I know; but I don’t s

tainly of the coolest. So forth we sallied, and under the autumnal foliage, in the cool amber light of the declining evening, we enjoyed our cher

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