Lady Audley's Secret, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [world of reading .txt] 📗

The governess lifted her head from its stooping attitude, and staredwonderingly at her employer, shaking back a shower of curls. They werethe most wonderful curls in the world--soft and feathery, alwaysfloating away from her face, and making a pale halo round her head whenthe sunlight shone through them.

"What do you mean, my dear Mrs. Dawson?" she asked, dipping hercamel's-hair brush into the wet aquamarine upon the palette, and poisingit carefully before putting in the delicate streak of purple which wasto brighten the horizon in her pupil's sketch.

"Why, I mean, my dear, that it only rests with yourself to become LadyAudley, and the mistress of Audley Court."

Lucy Graham dropped the brush upon the picture, and flushed scarlet tothe roots of her fair hair; and then grew pale again, far paler thanMrs. Dawson had ever seen her before.

"My dear, don't agitate yourself," said the surgeon's wife, soothingly;"you know that nobody asks you to marry Sir