“I wish one of them would come back,” she exclaimed. “I’ve a good mind to send for father, but he would only call me a little fool for my pains, and yet he knows I am all by myself, and he ought to consider that. I feel wretchedly lonely.”
She arose and went to the window.
The sky gathered over with clouds, and a cold wind muttered among the branches of the trees, and strewed the ground with brown and yellow leaves.
The clouds grew darker and heavier and rose towards the moon, which was still shining brightly.
Poor Patty went again to the book-shelf and took another volume from it at hazard.
It was a romance of the last century, written with exaggeration, but with terrible force.
It was not calculated to solace the recluse in Stoke Ferry Farm; but there was a fascination in its glowing pages, and Patty read on, her eyes rivetted on the pages of the volume, which contained accounts of murders and ghosts.
Her form stiffened like a sitting corpse; her eyes protruded; her lips uttered low gasps at every gust of wind which shook the casement. She started as if she had received an electric shook.
At last she could bear it no longer. The very words in the book seemed to have become blood-red, and long black spots ran up and down the page.
The farmer’s daughter was fairly overcome, and she let the volume fall to the ground, and in the extremity of her fear ran to the window for fresh air; she leant out, and looked up to the sky, listening.