"
"We, Miss?" said Sandy, with even greater consternation than surprise.
"Yes," she replied, too much absorbed by what she was thinking, to mind
him and his blunders,--"papa must take the prison."
"Oh!"--and Sandy blushed through his tan at his absurd mistake. Then he
laughed, for he saw that she had not noticed it. Then he looked grave,
and wondering, and doubtful. The idea of Adolphus Montier's pretty wife
and pretty daughter changing their pretty home for life in the dark
prison startled him. He seemed to think it no less wrong than strange.
But he did not express that feeling out and out; he was hindered, as he
glanced sideways at the young girl who gazed so solemnly, so loftily,
before her. At what she was looking he could not divine. He saw
nothing.
"I wouldn't be overly quick about that," said he, cautiously.
"No danger!" was the prompt reply.
"For I tell _you_, of all the places I ever see, that prison makes me
feel the queerest. I believe it's one reason I let the flower-garden go
so long," owned Sandy. He did not speak these words without an effort;
and never had Elizabeth seen him so solemn. She also was grave,--but
not after his manner of gravity.
"You see what I did with the poor flower-beds, Sandy," said she. "Wait
now till you see what happens to the prison."
But it is one thing to purpose, and another to execute.
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