Mr. Nowell asked his daughter's permission to
light his cigar, and having obtained it, sat smoking moodily all the
evening, staring into the fire, and very rarely addressing his companion,
who had taken a Bible out of her travelling-bag, and was reading those
solemn, chapters which best harmonised with her feelings at this moment;
thinking as she read of the time when her guardian and benefactor lay in
his last calm rest, and she had vainly tried to find comfort in the same
words, and had found herself staring blankly at the sacred page, with
eyes that were dry and burning, and to which there came no merciful
relief from tears.
Her father glanced at her askance now and then from his arm-chair by the
fire, as she sat by the little round table looking down at her book, the
light of the candles shining full upon her pensive face. He looked at her
with no friendliness in his eyes, but with that angry sparkle which had
grown almost habitual to them of late, since the world had gone ill with
him. After one of those brief stolen looks, a strange smile crept over
his face. He was thinking of a little speech of Shakespeare's Richard
about his nephew, the youthful Prince of Wales:
So young, so wise, they say do ne'er live long.
"How pious she is!" he said to himself with a diabolical sneer.
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