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Poor Bluebeard, learning at one blow of his ample dishonour, and the tragic death of his wife, did not console himself for the latter misfortune by any consideration of the former. He had loved Blanche de Gibeaumez with a strange ardour, more dearly than he had loved Jeanne de La Cloche, Gigonne Traignel, or even Colette Passage.
"Is the third sister unmarried?" it occurred to him to ask. The tone of the question revealed its perfunctory character. "Oh Beatrice she's of no importance," the father replied. "She goes in for writing, and all that she's not a beauty, you know she lives with an old lady in Scotland. The oldest daughter Blanche she has some good looks of her own, but she's a cat. And so you met Edith!
Tom and Blanche had fallen into teasing tricks, a sort of melancholy play to relieve the tedium. They grew cross. Norman was roused to reprove sharply, and Blanche was beginning to cry.
Lisbeth and Peter knew of the tales and wild rumours that were current in the neighbourhood, but they were careful to say nothing to Marjory or the doctor, and also very careful to lock themselves in at night, as they were by no means free from foolish fears and superstitions. First of all, the girls examined the portraits in the dining-room. Blanche inquired why there were no ladies amongst them.
Sir Patrick looked round, and waved his hand as he turned the corner of the road. Blanche was left alone in the yard. She lingered a little, absently patting the dogs. They had especial claims on her sympathy at that moment; they, too, evidently thought it hard to be left behind at the house. After a while she roused herself.
'A fire is lighted there, said he, 'and the birds are dressing; the table too is spread there, for that place is warmer than this. His companions approved of the removal, and invited their guests to follow to the gallery, of whom Blanche appeared distressed, and remained seated, and St. Foix looked at the Count, who said, he preferred the comfortable blaze of the fire he was then near.
It was no other than the happy Mirobolant whom Blanche had selected as an escort. But the truth is, that the young lady had never fairly looked in the artist's face since he had been employed in her mother's family, and had no idea but it was a foreign nobleman on whose arm she was leaning. As she went off, Pen forgot his humiliation in his surprise, and cried out, "By Jove, it's the cook!"
And then the rector's daughters proceeded to shake hands with Blanche and Captain Bloxam, and be by them presented to the remainder of the party.
It was a happy night for Belinda when Blanche went away; and her husband, with rather a blush and a sigh, said "he had been deceived in her; he had thought her endowed with many precious gifts, he feared they were mere tinsel; he thought she had been a right-thinking person, he feared she had merely made religion an amusement she certainly had quite lost her temper to the schoolmistress, and beat Polly Rucker's knuckles cruelly."
I didn't know it, so help me . Foker, I'd no more idea of it than the dead until the fellow came and found me out, the d d escaped convict scoundrel." "The what?" said Foker. Blanche gave a scream.
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