'
It was among the leafy shadows of this retirement, in the long
sultry summer days, that Mr. Harthouse began to prove the face
which had set him wondering when he first saw it, and to try if it
would change for him.
'Mrs. Bounderby, I esteem it a most fortunate accident that I find
you alone here. I have for some time had a particular wish to
speak to you.'
It was not by any wonderful accident that he found her, the time of
day being that at which she was always alone, and the place being
her favourite resort. It was an opening in a dark wood, where some
felled trees lay, and where she would sit watching the fallen
leaves of last year, as she had watched the falling ashes at home.
He sat down beside her, with a glance at her face.
'Your brother. My young friend Tom - '
Her colour brightened, and she turned to him with a look of
interest. 'I never in my life,' he thought, 'saw anything so
remarkable and so captivating as the lighting of those features!'
His face betrayed his thoughts - perhaps without betraying him, for
it might have been according to its instructions so to do.
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