[The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade]@TWC D-Link book
The Cloister and the Hearth

CHAPTER VII
12/20

His eyes and mouth opened, and remained open: in which state they kept turning, face and all as if on a pivot, from the picture to the women, and from the women to the picture.
"Why, it is herself," he gasped.
"Isn't it!" cried Kate, and her hostility was softened.

"You admire it?
I forgive you for frightening us." "Am I in a mad-house ?" said Ghysbrecht Van Swieten thoroughly puzzled.
"You show me a picture of the girl; and you say he painted it; and that is a proof he cannot love her.

Why, they all paint their sweethearts, painters do." "A picture of the girl ?" exclaimed Kate, shocked.

"Fie! this is no girl; this is our blessed Lady." "No, no; it is Margaret Brandt." "Oh blind! It is the Queen of Heaven." "No; only of Sevenbergen village." "Profane man! behold her crown!" "Silly child! look at her red hair! Would the Virgin be seen in red hair?
She who had the pick of all the colours ten thousand years before the world began." At this moment an anxious face was insinuated round the edge of the open door: it was their neighbour Peter Buyskens.
"What is to do ?" said he in a cautious whisper.

"We can hear you all across the street.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books