Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/76

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
68
AGNES GREY.

I confess, I was somewhat troubled at this change: I feared the consequences of her displeasure, and even made some efforts to recover the ground I had lost—and with better apparent success than I could have anticipated. At one time, I, merely in common civility, asked after her cough—immediately her long visage relaxed into a a smile, and she favoured me with a particular history of that and her other infirmities, followed by an account of her pious resignation, delivered in the usual emphatic, declamatory style which no writing can pourtray.

"But there's one remedy for all, my dear, and that's resignation," (a toss of the head) "resignation to the will of Heaven!" (an uplifting of hands and eyes.) " It has always supported me through all my trials, and always will do," (a succession of nods.) "But then, it isn't everybody that can say that;" (a shake of the head), "but I'm one of the pious ones, Miss Grey!" (a very significant nod and toss) "And, thank Heaven, I always was," (another nod) "and I glory in it!" (an emphatic clasping of the hands and shaking of the head) and with several texts of scripture, misquoted, or misapplied, and religious exclamations, so re-