Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/223

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ETHEL CHURCHILL.
221

turning pale at the bare mention of such a scheme."

"Say! why, my dear, you need only look," cried Henrietta: "not but what you may very well find plenty to say. You can tell him that your grandmother is just a silly old lady, who will never do any one any harm but herself. You can also ask him to behead Mr. Trevanion if ever he sets foot in England again."

"Will you never be serious?" interrupted her listener.

"I am too sad to be serious," replied Lady Marchmont: "do you know what that mood is when you would rather dwell upon anything but your own thoughts? I am always the most seemingly lively when I am the least so in reality; and I talk nonsense when I have not courage to talk sense. I make a noise, like children, because I am frightened at finding myself in the dark—that worst of darkness, the darkness of the heart."

"This from you!" exclaimed Ethel; "you, the brilliant, the flattered———"