Vashti's Fate — page 191: what you’re looking at

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

iz — Pe a bs eee S \ 7% : . * y ry Y v ‘ ‘ ~*. cat = ty ; es x “ emg bo) he ~F ms th We rth er ‘ee —_ al . ia | ; % 4 ie oe . athe’ = Ps 4 - 4 ‘ re — <8 ‘ é ee eh 2 » * eis x, 4 p Finn ees t= > ee «Son 4 186 WORSE AND WORSE. ‘That woman is my evil genius,” Vashti continued. «She has cursed my whole life; she has never broughtany good to our house. From the hour she entered Everleigh she has only done us evil, and that continually.” She was pacing the room excitedly, her dusky eyes shin- = ing luridly, and her cheeks on _fire. ‘*T wish I knew what it was about papa—just what it was. I would tax her with it, as true as my name is Vashti.” ‘‘ About papa?” Nora said, a little startled. : ‘‘ About papa,”’ Vashti answered, emphatically, ‘‘ I sup- pose you know that there was some mystery atone pa- pa’s death. Ifyou didn't before, you know it now.’ Nora made no reply. It was Vashti’s custom to speak harshly to her often nowadays, and her custom to receive such harshness frequently, with a burning face, but always with silence. She had not yet sufficient control of her own passionate tongue to trust it with words at such times. ‘‘Papa did not die in the face of day, as other people —— : do,” Vashti continued. ‘‘I remember, and you must, how carefully we were kept from the room where he fay ill, how we never knew he was dying till Margery Gresham told us he was dead, how we were only suffered to see him once before they hurried him off to the grave. There was no funeral, no minister, only Doctor Gracie read the burial service over him, and they hustled him under the ground as though he had been a pauper.” With a face like death, Nora stood looking with appalled a eyes from Vashti to the picture over the mantel-piece, and from that back to Vashti. ‘‘T had thought,” the elder sister said again, ‘‘that I a ‘ would never tell you this. There are people who say that Margery Gresham knows more of papa’s death than she = chooses to tell. I believe it. She always looks as thought | A oO q = * * a = J ‘So a) Few —P 7 + =< ma, ‘