A Quiet Nook in the Jura, by the Author of 'Doctor Antonio'. (Electronic book text)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER III. THE YOUNG LADY IN BLACK. MISFORTUNE never comes alone. The next corollary of the morning's alarm was Louisa's departure. Her mother had been so panic-stricken at the sight of ill-fated Suldi that she had run to her room, locked herself in, packed her things, and would have started immediately, but for the fear of finding the dog in her way. Hearing this on my return from the fatal expedition, I hastened to the lady in the full conviction that a faithful account of the tragic transaction I had just witnessed would be more than enough to dispel her fright, and decide her to stay. But in this I was mistaken. My textit{de visu evidence, interpreted to her, and backed on my side by the most expressive pantomime at my command, failed to obtain credence, either from her, or, indeed, from the interpreters. Here was the fable of the boyand the wolf realized in full. Too polite to say that she disbelieved what I said, Louisa's mother alleged the painful impressions that were associated with the place, and rendered it disagreeable for her. And she stuck to her resolution of going, which she effected the next morning. It was a day of mourning for the establishment . Louisa's departure was a public calamity, the more keenly felt, that the only alleviating circumstance of which the case admittednamely, a little responsive feeling from the object of all this grief failed us entirely. Louisa's frame of mind at leaving, I am sorry to say, was anything but complimentary to those she left behind. Not only was she not sorry, but joyful, and all impatience to be gone. The excitement of the occasion, the prospect of a ride on the railway, had put a muffler on the little pet's sensibility. I see her still in her travelling cloak, and turned-up hat, a leather pouch slung across her shoulders, pattering a...