He had
never chosen to let old Sophy dwell upon these matters, for obvious
reasons. The girl must not grow up haunted by perpetual fears and
prophecies, if it were possible to prevent it.
"Well, how has Elsie seemed of late?" he said, after this brief pause.
The old woman shook her head. Then she looked up at the Doctor so
steadily and searchingly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could
hardly have pierced more deeply.
The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual movement, and met the old
woman's look with his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by the
glasses through which he now saw her.
Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if telling a vision.
"We shall be havin' trouble before long. The' 's somethin' comin' from
the Lord. I've had dreams, Doctor. It's many a year I've been
a-dreamin', but now they're comin' over 'n' over the same thing. Three
times I've dreamed one thing, Doctor,--one thing!"
"And what was that?" the Doctor said, with that shade of curiosity in his
tone which a metaphysician would probably say is an index of a certain
tendency to belief in the superstition to which the question refers.
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