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Aldrich, Anne Reeve, 1866-1892

"A Village Ophelia and Other Stories"

It seemed strangely to me as if those
odd eyes of hers could pierce the blinding mist. "I will not go back
with you. I have just come."
Whatever she did or said that might have seemed rude or brusque in
another, was sweet and courteous from her manner. "Very well," I said.
Then I paused,--my desire to meet her again was absurdly keen. Stepping
closer to her side, I extended my hand. "Will you come to see me, Miss
Rayne? I am very lonely, and I should be so--grateful."
She touched my fingers lightly with a chilly little hand, yet she never
looked at me as she replied, "Yes, some day."
As I plodded heavily through the wet sand, I was irresistibly impelled
to turn my head. She was merely standing exactly as I left her, thin
and straight, in the black gown that clung closely to her slender limbs,
with the mass of light hair about her shoulders.
Drenched as I was, when I reached home, with the large warm drops of the
storm's beginning, I stopped in the sitting-room a moment before going
to my room. The smell of ironing scented the house, but Mrs. Libby was
resting placidly in the rocking-chair, her feet on a cushioned stool.
She was eating some peaches, tearing them apart from the stone with
strong, juice-dropping fingers, and dipping them in a saucer of coarse
sugar before she devoured them.
"Mrs. Libby, who is Agnes Rayne?" I asked.


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