Suddenly, Miranda shut her teeth,
clenched her hands, and with a sort of fierce suppressed
ejaculation, lifted her shining foot and planted it full on the
rat's head. So sudden, so fierce, and so strong, was the stamp,
that the rat was crushed flat, and uttered a sharp and indignant
squeal of expostulation, while Sir Norman looked at her, thinking
she had lost her wits. Still she ground it down with a fiercer
and stronger force every second; and with her eyes still fixed
upon it, and blazing with reddish black flame, she said, in a
sort of fiery hiss:
"Look at it! The ugly, loathsome thing! Did you ever see
anything look more like him?"
There must have been some mysterious rapport between them, for he
understood at once to whom the solitary personal pronoun
referred.
"Certainly, in the general expression of countenance there is
rather a marked resemblance, especially in the region of the
teeth and eyes."
"Except that the rat's eyes are a thousand times handsomer," she
broke in, with a derisive laugh.
"But as to shape," resumed Sir Norman, eyeing the excited and
astonished little animal, still shrilly squealing, with the
glance of a connoisseur, "I confess I do not see it! The rat is
straight and shapely - which his highness, with all reverence be
it said - is not, but rather the reverse, if you will not be
offended at me for saying so.
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