The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

THE EVIL GENIUS. 67 usually presented after the nursery dinner, were produced on this occasion after breaifast, there would be a period of delay before any confidential conversation could take place between Mr. and Mrs. Linley. In this interval Mrs. Presty saw her op- portunity of setting Linlev’s authority at defiance, by rousing the ‘Irst jealous suspicion in the mind of his wife. Innocent little Kitty became her grandmother’s accomplice on the spot. ‘‘I shall ask mamma to let me have my presents at vreakfast-time,” she announced. ‘‘And kind mamma will say Yes,” Mrs. Presty chimed in. ‘* We will breakfast early, my precious child. Good-night.” Kitty was half asleep when her governess entered the room afterward, much later than usual. ‘‘ I thought you had forgot- ten me,” she said, yawning, and stretching out her plump little arms. Sydney’s heart ached when she thought of the separation that was to come with the next day; her despair forced its way to ex- pression in words. ‘‘ I wish I could forget you,” she answered, in reckless wretchedness., The child was still too drowsy to hear plainly. ‘* What did you say?” she asked. Sydney gently lifted her in the bed, and kissed her again and again. Kitty’s sleepy eyes opened in sur- prise. ‘‘ How cold your hands are!” she said, ‘* and how often you kiss me. Iam going to make a joke, Syd. Which is it you have come to say to me—good-night or good-bye?” Sydney laid her down again on the pillow, gave her a last kiss, and ran out of the room. In the corridor she heard Linley’s voice on the lower floor. He was asking one of the servants if Miss Westerfield was in the house or in the garden. Her first impulse was to advance to the stairs and answer his question. In amoment more the remembrance of Mrs. Linley checked her. She went back to her bedchamber. The presents that she had received since her arrival at Mount Morven were all laid out so that they could be easily seen by any person entering the room, after she had left the house. On the sofa lay the pretty new dress which she had worn at the even- ing party. Other little gifts were arranged on either side of it. The bracelet resting on the pedestal of a statue close by, kept a morsel of paper in its place, on which she had written a few penitent words of farewell, addressed to Mrs. Linley. On the toilet-table three photographic portraits showed themselves among the brushes and combs. She sat down, and looked first at the likenesses of Mrs. Linley and Kitty. Had she any right to make those dear faces her companions in the future ? She hesitated; her tears dropped on the photographs. ‘* They’re as good as spoilt now,” she thought; ‘*they’re no longer fit for anybody but me.” She paused, and abruptly took up the third and last photograph—the likeness of Herbert Linley. Was it an offense, now, even to look at his portrait? No idea of leaving it behind her was in her mind. Her resolution vi- brated between two miseries—the misery of preserving her keep- COMIC OO© S (CE) m