One or two late birds sleepily chirping in their
nests, and a bat heavily crossing and recrossing her, and the reek
of her own tread in the thick dust that felt like velvet, were all
Mrs. Sparsit heard or saw until she very softly closed a gate.
She went up to the house, keeping within the shrubbery, and went
round it, peeping between the leaves at the lower windows. Most of
them were open, as they usually were in such warm weather, but
there were no lights yet, and all was silent. She tried the garden
with no better effect. She thought of the wood, and stole towards
it, heedless of long grass and briers: of worms, snails, and
slugs, and all the creeping things that be. With her dark eyes and
her hook nose warily in advance of her, Mrs. Sparsit softly crushed
her way through the thick undergrowth, so intent upon her object
that she probably would have done no less, if the wood had been a
wood of adders.
Hark!
The smaller birds might have tumbled out of their nests, fascinated
by the glittering of Mrs.
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