She was quite calm, and her manner even cold and indifferent.
"If you wish us to go to-day, it is still possible. I can walk as far as
the rectory. For your father's sake, the rector will make us
welcome.--Charlotte, my bonnet and cloak!"
"Mother! I think such threats very uncalled for. What will people say?
And how can poor Julius defend himself against two ladies? I call it
taking advantage of us."
"'Taking advantage?' Oh, no! Oh, no!--Charlotte, my dear, give me my
cloak."
The little lady was not to be either frightened or entreated; and she
deigned Julius--who had been hastily summoned by Sophia--no answer,
either to his arguments or his apologies.
"It is enough," she cried, with a slight quiver in her voice, "it is
enough! You turn me out of the home he gave me. Do you think that the
dead see not? know not? You will find out, you will find out." And so,
leaning upon Charlotte's arm, she walked slowly down the stairway, and
into the dripping, soaking, gloomy afternoon. It was indeed wretched
weather. A thick curtain of mist filled all the atmosphere, and made of
daylight only a diluted darkness, in which it was hard to distinguish
the skeletons of the trees which winter had stripped. The mountains had
disappeared; there was no sky; a veil of chilling moisture and
depressing gloom was over every thing. But neither Charlotte nor her
mother was at that hour conscious of such inoffensive disagreeables.
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