Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 166: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

158 ALFRED DE ROSANN.. situations, and which are invariably experienced during a vigil by the side of a corpse. It was in vain that he endeavoured to change the subject of his reflections. Imagination is often obsti- nate, as well as fanciful; and we may occasionally essay to turn the rush of torrents from their course, or to roll back the Alpine avalanche, with the same chance of success as hope to banish unpleasant ideas, in order to make room for felicitous ones. ‘The gory head of Francois rolling away from the platform of the guzdlotine—the disfigured trunk that remained upon the horizontal plank—the shapeless mass of dead flesh which had fallen at his feet during the riot, and which he knew was the massacred body of Eidouard—then the solemn silence of the chamber, the dim flickering of the candle, the dubious shadows it cast upon the wall, and the low respiration of Belle- Rose, who, having changed his position, breathed hard no longer—all these agitated the mind of De Rosann, and expelled every inclination to slumber. “This is childish!’’ he at length exclaimed, as he caught himself looking fearfully round the room after a sudden noise; “I scarcely know what I am doing —to be terrified at the sound of a mouse, or the creak- ing of the timber—perhaps a beam opening, and eva- cuating confined air, a circumstance which often hap- pens in old houses;’?—and he endeavoured to laugh at his folly, but the echo returned his mirth in such dismal reverberations, that they resembled human groans—or at least his fancy invented the similitude. ‘And there are strangers in the spacious dwelling,”’ continued he, musing aloud: “ how ridiculous it would be to disturb them with my idle fears. Still this room is lonely—a murderer has slept—that is to say, lodged here; for sleep could not have visited his eyes. —A gentleman and two ladies—in a carriage, with a ser-— vant—to condescend to honour these miserable walls with their presence!—It would have been as well had that Louis Dorval not troubled us with his tale about poor Francois—the unfortunate old man, who was commicooolks.conn