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As the bleak, cold winds from the plains swept down the deserted street at night, and moaned dolorously through the ruined houses, rattling doors, and flapping paper windows, it lifted these torn book-leaves, and swirled them round in a fantastic dance of death, until one could almost imagine one heard the lamentation of the ghosts of their long-dead authors priests, hermits, and scholars mourning over the ashes of their life-work.
For an hour the place was silent, except for the falling clinkers from the grate, the rustling of book-leaves, and the plumping of rain on the windows, when the wind shifted a point. Lost in the romance, Mr. Traill took no note of the passing time or of his quiet guests until he felt a little tug at his trouser-leg. "Eh, laddie?" he questioned. Up the little dog rose in the begging attitude.
"I will not take any false steps," she thought; "I will be true to my determination, and therefore I will not go to see Margaret Brown this afternoon; there would be a double motive in the visit, I fear." Rising, she went slowly up the stairs to Aunt Faith's room; the door was partly open, and she could hear the rustle of book-leaves.
Away forward and aft our schoolroom was dark, and the distance between decks so narrowed that we could only explore those extremes of the hold by going on hands and knees with the chance, too, of starting some big rat, an old grey navigator, perhaps, who, believing firmly in "Don't give up the ship!" could not get over his surprise at seeing his once rolling and well-stored residence now stationary, and furnishing no better victuals than book-leaves, chalk, and sometimes the crumbs of a boy's lunch.
In the adjoining room, beyond the open door, far into the night, rustled book-leaves turned by the English governess. Miss Mary watched long, and stood often in the open door, between her room and Cara's, inclining forward, looking from a distance at the bed from which the regular, unbroken sound of breathing came to her. She is asleep.
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