"Yes; very nice. Thank you. Oh! Donnie, I wish we were away."
"So we shall, miss, presently, please God. Them's precious bad pins—Binney and Clew—bends like lead; there's two on 'em. Thompson's mixed shillin' boxes—them's the best. Miss Trixie allays has 'em. Your hair's beautiful, miss, allays was; but dearie me! what a lot you've got! and so beautiful fine! I take it in handfuls—floss silk—and the weight of it! Beautiful hair, miss. Dearie me, what some 'id give for that!"
Thus old Gwynn ran on; but fixed, pale, and wild was the face which would once have kindled in the conscious pride of beauty at the honest admiration of old Donnie, who did not rise into raptures for everyone and on all themes, and whose eulogy was therefore valuable.
"I see, Donnie—nothing bad has happened?" said Lady Jane, with a scared glance at her face.
"Bad? Nonsense! I told you, Miss Jennie, 'twould all be made up, and so it will, please God, miss."
But Lady Jane seemed in no wise cheered by her promises, and after a silence of some minutes, she asked suddenly, with the same painful look—
"Donnie, tell me the truth, for God's sake; how is he?"
Donica looked at her with dark inquiry.
"The General is gone, you know, ma'am."
"Stop—you know," cried Lady Jane, seizing her fiercely by the arm, with a wild fixed stare in her face.