The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 225: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

a4 THE EVIL GENIUS. sengerg and crew had been discovered on a desert island, and had been safely restored to their friends. Having read this record of suffering and suspense, Catherine looked at her mother, and waited for an explanation. ‘‘ Don’t you see it?” Mrs. Presty asked. ‘‘T can’t say that I do.” The old lady’s excellent temper was not in the least ruffled, even by this. ‘‘ Quite inexcusable on my part,” she acknowledged; ‘‘I ought to have remembered that you don’t inherit your mother’s vivid imagination. Age has left me in full possession of those powers of invention which used to amaze your poor father. He won- dered how it was that I never wrote a novel. Mr. Presty’s ap- preciation of my intellect was equally sincere; but he took a different view. ‘Beware, my dear,’ he said, ‘ of trifling with the distinction which you now enjoy; you are one of the most remarkable women in England—you have never written a novel.’ Pardon me; I am wandering into the region of literary anecdote, when I ought to explain myself. Now pray attend to this: I propose to tell Kitty that I have found a book which is sure to interest her; and I shall direct her attention to the lam- entable story which you have just read. She is quite sharp enough (there are sparks of my intellectual fire in Kitty) to ask if the friends of the poor, shipwrecked people were not very much surprised to see them again. To this I shall answer, ‘Very much, indeed, for their friends thought they were dead.’ Ah, you dear, dull child, you see it now!” Catherine saw it so plainly that she was eager to put the first part of the experiment to an immediate trial. Kitty was sent for, and made her appearance with a fishing- rod over her shoulder. ‘‘I?’m going to the brook,” she an- nounced; ‘‘expect some fish for dinner to-day.” A wary old hand stopped Catherine in the act of presenting the ‘‘ Disasters at Sea” to Kitty’s notice; and a voice, distin- guished by insinuating kindness, said to the child, ‘‘ When you have done fishing, my dear, come to me; I have got a nice book for you to read. How very absurd of you, Catherine,” Mrs. Presty continued, when they were together again, ‘‘to expect the child to read, and draw her own conclusions, while her head is full of fishing! If there are any fish in the brook, she won’t catch them. When she comes back disappointed, and says, ‘What am I to do now’? the ‘ Disasters at ‘Sea’ will have a chance. I make it a rule never to boast; but if there is a thing that I understand, it’s the management of children. Why didn’t I have a large family ?” Attended by the faithful Susan, Kitty baited her hook, and began to fish where the waters of the brook were overshaduwed by trees. A little arbor covered by a thatched roof, and having walls of wooden lattice-work hidden by creepers climbing over them in- side and out, offered an attractive place of rest on this sheltered side of the garden. Having brought her work with her, the pursemaid retired to the summer-house and diligently plied her EONNICOOOKS,eO©