Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. j]HE scene had changed with the fall of the tide. The mirror-like pools were gone from the marshes, and Mercy followed a dank foot-path which meandered uninvitingly through them. Her life, hitherto monotonous, had suddenly become thrilling ; and she lived from day to day in a fever of anxiety. When with others, she resolutely resisted their depression, endeavoring to encourage them as well; but when alone, a sickening dread made her heart sink. Upon entering the house her presence was acknowledged by a subdued rattling of chairs, and after a short interval a little dark man came in at the door, and crossed the padded carpet to a dumb-waiter beside the chimney. Very quietly and quickly he moved in his list slippers, and after a few moments Aunt Polly and Mercy sat down at the table. It would take a long time to tell the history of each inmate of the Captain's house ; though they were all people with histories, accessory to the central figure, whom all hated, feared, loved, would even have died for, so violent and contrary were his characteristics. The Captain was a man at once fickle and steadfast. When he gave way to his ungovernable temper, as he often did, it was with the overpowering fury of the moment; an hour later he would go to the ends of the earth to make amends. Beneath it was a solid rock of steadfast prejudice which nothing could unsettle. Casual acquaintances often feared or hated him, knowing only the surface of the man ; but the helpless or poor, who sought shelter in his strength, loved him so they would have died for him, if need be. His " curios," as those who hated him called the collection of beast, bird, and humankind which inhabited Blessington House, were extraordinary, and had been picked up and brought hither from Heav... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.