Griff went out shooting, and the two young ladies and I intended to
spend a very rational morning in the bookroom, reading aloud Mme. de
La Rochejaquelein's Memoirs by turns. Our occupations were, on
Emily's part, completing a reticule, in a mosaic of shaded coloured
beads no bigger than pins' heads, for a Christmas gift to mamma--a
most wearisome business, of which she had grown extremely tired.
Miss Fordyce was elaborately copying our Muller's print of
Raffaelle's St. John in pencil on cardboard, so as to be as near as
possible a facsimile; and she had trusted me to make a finished
water-coloured drawing from a rough sketch of hers of the Hillside
barn and farm-buildings, now no more.
In a pause Ellen Fordyce suddenly asked, 'What did you mean about
that picture?'
'Only Clarence said it was like--' and here Emily came to a dead
stop.
'Grandpapa says it is like me,' said Miss Fordyce. 'What, you don't
mean THAT? Oh! oh! oh! is it true? Does she walk? Have you seen
her? Mamma calls it all nonsense, and would not have Anne hear of
it for anything; but old Aunt Peggy used to tell me, and I am sure
grandpapa believes it, just a little. Have you seen her?'
'Only Clarence has, and he knew the picture directly.'
She was much impressed, and on slight persuasion related the story,
which she had heard from an elder sister of her grandfather's, and
which had perhaps been the more impressed on her by her mother's
consternation at 'such folly' having been communicated to her.
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