Countless times I blotted out that mental picture with a sweep
of common sense. "She was a pert miss, with her head full of French
nonsense and a nose held too high in air." Then a memory of the eyes
under the beaver, and fancy was at it again spinning cobwebs in
moonshine.
M. Picot kept more aloof than formerly, and was as heartily hated for
it as the little minds of a little place ever hate those apart.
Occasionally, in the forest far back from the settlement, I caught a
flying glimpse of Lincoln green; and Hortense went through the woods,
hard as her Irish hunter could gallop, followed by the blackamoor,
churning up and down on a blowing nag. Once I had the good luck to
restore a dropped gauntlet before the blackamoor could come. With eyes
alight she threw me a flashing thanks and was off, a sunbeam through
the forest shades; and something was thumping under a velvet waistcoat
faster than the greyhound's pace. A moment later, back came the hound
in springy stretches, with the riders at full gallop.
Her whip fell, but this time she did not turn.
But when I carried the whip to the doctor's house that night, M. Picot
received it with scant grace!
Whispers--gall-midges among evil tongues--were raising a buzz that
boded ill for the doctor.
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