She stopped for a moment, and fixed her dark, gloomy eyes on the
swarming floor, and shook off, with out a shudder, the hideous things
that crawled over her rich dress. She had scarcely looked at Sir Norman
since she began to speak, but he had done enough looking for them both,
never once taking his eyes from the handsome darkening face. He thought
how strangely like her story was to Leoline's--both shut in and isolated
from the outer world. Verily, destiny seemed to have woven the woof and
warp of their fates wonderfully together, for their lives were as
much the same as their faces. Miranda, having shook off her crawling
acquaintances, watched them glancing along the foul floor in the
darkness, and went moodily on.
"It was three years ago when I was fifteen years old, as I told you,
that a change took place in my life. Up to that time, that miserable
dwarf was what people would call my guardian, and did not trouble me
much with his heavenly company. He was a great deal from our house,
sometimes absent for weeks together; and I remember I used to envy the
freedom with which he came and went, far more than I ever wondered where
he spent his precious time. I did not know then that he belonged to
the honorable profession of highwaymen, with variations of coining when
travelers were few and money scarce. He was then, and is still, at
the head of a formidable gang, over whom he wields most desperate
authority--as perhaps you have noticed during the brief and pleasant
period of your acquaintance."
"Really, madam, it struck me that your authority over them was much more
despotic than his," said Sir Norman, in all sincerity, feeling called
upon to give the--well, I'd rather not repeat the word, which is
generally spelled with a d and a dash--his due.
"No thanks to him for that! He would make me a slave now, as he did
then, if he dared, but he has found that, poor, trodden worm as I was, I
had life enough left to turn and sting."
"Which you do with a vengeance! Oh I you're a Tartar!" remarked Sir
Norman to himself. "The saints forefend that Leoline should be like
you in temper, as she is in history and face; for if she is, my life
promises to be a pleasant one."
"This rascally crew of cut-throats, whom his villainous highness
headed," said Miranda, "were an almost immense number then, being
divided in three bodies--London cut-purses, Hounslow Heath highwaymen,
and assistant-coiners, but all owning him for their lord and master.
He told me all this himself, one day when, in an after-dinner and most
gracious mood, he made a boasting display of his wealth and greatness;
told me I was growing up very pretty indeed, and that I was shortly to
be raised to the honor and dignity, and bliss of being his wife.