No, I couldn't have gone; I'd have stayed and killed a hundred
tyrants. But I wouldn't have chopped their heads off" (to Vizard, very
confidentially); "I'd have poisoned 'em."
"Don't, Miss Gale!" said Fanny; "you make my blood run cold."
As it was quite indifferent to Miss Gale whether she made Miss Dover's
blood run cold or not, she paid no attention, but proceeded with her
reflections. "The only thing that spoils it is the smoke of those
engines, reminding one that in two hours you or I, or that pastoral old
hermit there in a smock-frock, and a pipe--and oh, what bad tobacco!--can
be wrenched out of this paradise, and shrieked and rattled off and flung
into that wilderness of brick called London, where the hearts are as hard
as the pavement--except those that have strayed there from Barfordshire."
The witch changed face and tone and everything like lightning, and threw
this last in with a sudden grace and sweetness that contrasted strangely
with her usual sharpness.
Zoe heard, and turned round to look down on her with a smile as sweet as
honey. "I hardly think that is a drawback," said she, amicably. "Does not
being able to leave a place make it sweeter? for then we are free in it,
you know.
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