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Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1835-1915

"Phantom Fortune, a Novel"

It is one of the new
houses, exquisitely furnished, and Lady K. thinks you might have it for
a song. Will you get Steadman to write to his lordship's steward, and
see what can be done?
'I hope the dear hand is better. You have never told me how you hurt
it. It is very sweet of Mary to write me such long letters, and quite a
pleasant surprise to find she can spell; but I want to see your own dear
hand once more.'


CHAPTER XVIII.
'AND COME AGEN BE IT BY NIGHT OR DAY.'

Those winter months were unutterably dreary for Lady Mary Haselden. She
felt weighed down by a sense of death and woe near at hand. The horror
of that dreadful moment in which she found her grandmother lying
senseless on the ground, the terror of that distorted countenance, those
starting eyes, that stertorous breathing, was not easily banished from a
vivid girlish imagination; seeing how few distractions there were to
divert Mary's thoughts, and how the sun sank and rose again upon the
same inevitable surroundings, to the same monotonous routine.
Her grandmother was kinder than she had been in days gone by, less
inclined to find fault; but Mary knew that her society gave Lady
Maulevrier very little pleasure, that she could do hardly anything
towards filling the gap made by Lesbia's absence.


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