Your Electronic Books

He watched with
wicked satisfaction the drops of wax melt off the broken forehead of
Arabella, and drop like sweat into the flame. So long as the stupid big
doll burned he rejoiced in silence. At the end be poked among the embers
with a stick, fished out the arms and legs, all blackened, and smashed
them under stones.
"That's the sacrifice of Missis Arabella," he said. "An' I'm glad
there's nothing left of her."
Which disturbed Annie inwardly, although she could say nothing. He
seemed to hate the doll so intensely, because he had broken it.
All the children, but particularly Paul, were peculiarly against their
father, along with their mother. Morel continued to bully and to drink.
He had periods, months at a time, when he made the whole life of the
family a misery. Paul never forgot coming home from the Band of Hope
one Monday evening and finding his mother with her eye swollen and
discoloured, his father standing on the hearthrug, feet astride, his
head down, and William, just home from work, glaring at his father.


Pages:
110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134