Library / Literature & Fiction
Cousin Phillis
- Pages
- about 112
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
Cousin Holman gave me the weekly county newspaper to read aloud to her,
while she mended stockings out of a high piled-up basket, Phillis
helping her mother. I read and read, unregardful of the words I was
uttering, thinking of all manner of other things; of the bright colour
of Phillis’s hair, as the afternoon sun fell on her bending head; of
the silence of the house, which enabled me to hear the double tick of
the old clock which stood half-way up the stairs; of the variety of
inarticulate noises which cousin Holman made while I read, to show her
sympathy, wonder, or horror at the newspaper intelligence. The tranquil
monotony of that hour made me feel as if I had lived for ever, and
should live for ever droning out paragraphs in that warm sunny room,
with my two quiet hearers, and the curled-up pussy cat sleeping on the
hearth-rug, and the clock on the house-stairs perpetually clicking out
the passage of the moments. By-and-by Betty the servant came to the
door into the kitchen, and made a sign to Phillis, who put her
half-mended stocking down, and went away to the kitchen without a word.
Looking at cousin Holman a minute or two afterwards, I saw that she had
dropped her chin upon her breast, and had fallen fast asleep. I put the
newspaper down, and was nearly following her example, when a waft of
air from some unseen source, slightly opened the door of communication
with the kitchen, that Phillis must have left unfastened; and I saw
part of her figure as she sate by the dresser, peeling apples with
quick dexterity of finger, but with repeated turnings of her head
towards some book lying on the dresser by her. I softly rose, and as
softly went into the kitchen, and looked over her shoulder; before she
was aware of my neighbourhood, I had seen that the book was in a
language unknown to me, and the running title was L’Inferno.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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