XXVIII - THE BELL RINGS
“Will that beast never go to bed—even there, I mind, she used to sleep with an eye open and an ear c****d—and nowhere safe from her never—here and there, up and down, without a stir or a breath, like a ghost or a devil?”—thought Mrs. Tarnley. “Thank God, she’s blind now, that will quiet her.”
Mildred was afraid of that woman. It was not only that she was cold and hard, but she was so awfully violent and wicked.
“Satan’s her name. Lord help us, in what hell did he pick her up?” Mildred would say to herself, in old times, as with the important fury of fear, she used to knock about the kitchen utensils, and deal violently with every chair, table, spoon, or “cannikin” that came in her way.
The woman had fits, and bad fits too, in old times, when she knew her well.
