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Chapter 19

The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the sibil, if sibil she were, was seated snugly enough in an easy chair at the chimney corner.

She had on a rag cloak and a black bonnet, or rather a broad brimmed hat tied down with a striped hankerchief under her chin.

An extinguished candle stood on the table, she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer book, by the light of the blaze.

She muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read.

She did not dissist immediately on my entrance, it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.

I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold, with sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire.

I felt now as composed as ever I did in my life. There is nothing indeed in the appearance of the woman to trouble one's calm.

She shot her book and slowly looked up.

Her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one.

It looked all brown and black.

Elf-lox bristled out from beneath a white band, which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws.

Her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze.

Well, and you want your fortune told, she said, and a voice has decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.

I don't care about it, mother, you may please yourself, but I ought to warn you, I have no faith.

It's like your impotence to say so. I expected it of you. I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold.

Did you? You've a quick ear. I have, and a quick eye and a quick brain.

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