The things we do!

For the first minute she was
half paralysed with terror; she lay staring at it without
power to move, and then she would assuredly have run to some
one for protection had she known to whom to go, or, indeed,
had she not been too terrified to do more than hide her head
under the counterpane again. From that time it became a
perpetual nightmare to her. By day its terrors were less
apparent, though even then, with her innate love for all
things bright, and joyous, and pleasant, it was a positive
grief to her to have such a grim object before her eyes
whenever she came into the room; but at night no sooner was
she in bed, and the light taken away, than her imagination
conjured up a hundred frightful shapes, that all associated
themselves with the grinning death's-head. In vain she covered
it up, in vain she shut her eyes--sleeping or waking it seemed
always there. At length she could bear it no longer, and
entreated piteously that it might be taken away; but Soeur
Lucie, to whom the little prayer was made, did not view the
matter in at all the same light as Madelon.


Pages:
267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291