Chapter 19

Chapter 19 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 the 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: l 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.' 'I d...