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But as the months went by, and Norma began to realize that Miss Slater's position was not only far from the ideally beautiful one it had seemed at first, but that the homely, elderly, good-natured woman was actually putting herself to some pains to make Norma's own life in the Liggett house more comfortable than it might have been, she had come genuinely to admire Alice's attendant, and now they were fast friends.
"My darling," said the mother, laying her face against Alice's, "I have reared you too far from the world." But for once in her life Mrs. Westmore knew that her daughter, who had heretofore been willing to sacrifice everything for her mother's comfort, now halted before such a chasm as this, as stubborn and instinctively as a wild doe in her flight before a precipice.
Society was much occupied during Alice's first season in London with the upshot of an historical event of a common kind. England, a few years before, had stolen a kingdom from a considerable people in Africa, and seized the person of its king.
Dame Deborah, who longed for domestic independence, was careful to increase this impression by alarming her patron's fears on account of Alice's health. The mansion of Kirk-Truagh stood, she said, much exposed to the Scottish winds, which could not but be cold, as they came from a country where, as she was assured, there was ice and snow at midsummer.
By this time Rene had reached Alice's side; but she did not see him; she ran into the blockhouse and climbed up a rude ladder-way; then she appeared on the roof, still accompanied by Rene, and planted the staff in a crack of the slabs, where it stood bravely up, the colors floating free. She looked down and saw M. Roussillon, Father Gibault and Father Beret grouped in the centre of the area.
Little Lydia, deprived of Miss Janet's company in consequence of Alice's sickness, listened to the pervading subject of conversation all day, and at night dreamed that the old woman had carried her off to the top of the highest of the mountains that stood before them; and there she sat scowling upon her, and there, they were to be forever.
The reindeer were hitched, tandem style, to the sleigh, harnessed and reined with the gayest red ribbon. The packages and letters began to come, in considerable numbers, during the next few days, and several more "plums" were given into Alice's care, not to mention the dates, raisins, currants, and the like, for every check or coin was classified with the fruit, for the filling of the pie.
"If you please, Ellen I should like it very much." She sat down, and Ellen gave her the letter, and stood by while she read it, watching her with glistening eyes; and though, as she saw Alice's fill, her own overflowed again, she hung over her still to the last; going over every line this time with a new pleasure: "New York, Saturday, Nov. 22, 18 .
How then was he astonished and confounded when at the reading of the Psalter, another voice than hers greeted his ear! a strange, sharp voice, whose tones were not as indicative of refinement as Alice's had been, and whose pronunciation, distinctly heard, savored somewhat of the so-called down East.
The man was blissfully unconscious of her presence, and as he worked he whistled Schubert's "Wohin," and whistled it very badly. Then he fell to apostrophizing his tackle, and then he grew irritable. "Somebody come and keep this thing taut," he cried. "Tam, Jock! where on earth are you?" The thing in question was lying at Alice's feet in wavy coils.
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