Uncle Silas

and fro, in the great room. Perhaps it was the uproar of the mind that disturbed the ordinary ten

high-backed arm-chair, beside the fire, and nearly opposite to me, and looked

- you must ha

my book or work, as it might be, and adj

- yes. I believe there are accomplished ladies - finishing governesses, they call them - who undertake more than any one teacher would have professed in my

k you

nths since Miss Ellerton left y

lowed an

at key, and what it opens; you sho

eying him in even so minute a matter, "you will

ntry smile - it seldom came, and was very

look. You have remarked how solitary I live. You fancy, perhaps, I have not got a friend, and you are nearly right -

ly whether it cou

name - you'll hear that soon enough, and I don't want it talked of; and I must ma

her question, my curiosity and anxiety overcoming m

d. I must make the excursion with him the moment he calls. I have no choice

and sad. The exact purport of these sentences remained fixed in my

h suspicion for a moment troubled me. I was quite sure that he spoke of a real person who was coming, and that his journey was something momentous; and when the visitor o

his strange ways, and had so unbounded a confidence in his affection, that they never depressed or agitated me in the matter you might have supposed. I had a great deal of quite a different sort of chat with good old Mrs. Rusk, and very pleasa

books and his child - to whom he clung, and set forth on an unknown knight-errantry? Who but Uncle Silas, I thought - that mysterious relative whom I had never seen - who was, it had in old times been very darkly hinted to me, unspeakable unfortunate or unspeakably vicious - whom I had

chair, and I watched the process with a childish interest. She sat down to rest herself - she had been stooping over her work

e then quite obsolete, though I believe it was seen at the beginning of this century - white leather panta

ve so often heard the exclamation -"What a wonderfully handsome man!" and then, "What a clever face!" An Italian greyhound stood by him, and some slender columns and a rich drapery in the background. But though the accessories were of

t Uncle Sil

looking, with her resolute litt

me man, Mrs. Rusk. Don't

here in the corner, in the shadow that comes from his foot, and forty years, I can t

still looking on the handsome

is papa always so s

very near. I looked round, with a start, and f

that; but if I were, I will now tell you, it would not be unnatural. Your uncle is a man of great talents, great faults, and great wrongs. His talents have not availed hi

ittle courtesy, answered Mrs.

ould think more of him at present. Clear your head of Uncle Silas. One day, perhaps

etired, and at t

e," beckoning to that lady, who

t time forth I could never lead either to talk with me about Uncle Silas. They let me talk on, but were reserved and

ns and top-boots gathered many-coloured circles of mystery, and the handsome feat

ist? Knowledge is power - and power of one sort or another is the secret lust of human souls; and here is, beside the sense of explor