CHAPTER XIX 245
CHAPTER XIX
The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl-- if Sibyl she were-- was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney-corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer-book, by the light of the blaze: she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read; she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.
I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the gipsy ' s appearance to trouble one ' s calm. She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze.
" Well, and you want your fortune told?" she said, in a voice as decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.
" I don ' t care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to warn you, I have no faith."
" It ' s like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold."
" Did you? You ' ve a quick ear." " I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain." " You need them all in your trade."