Читать книгу The Primrose Path: A Chapter in the Annals of the Kingdom of Fife онлайн

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“Eh? Who is that—?” Sir Ludovic roused up as if he had been asleep; “you, little Peggy?”

“Yes; were you sleeping? I wondered and wondered that you never saw me.”

“I don’t think I was asleep,” he said, with a little confusion. “To tell the truth, I do get drowsy sometimes lately, and I don’t half like it,” he added, in an undertone.

“You don’t like it?” said Margaret: she was not uneasy, but she was sympathetic. “But then don’t do it, papa; come and take a little walk with me”—(here she paused, remembering that to-night, for instance, Sir Ludovic would have been much out of place), “or a turn in the garden, like John.”

Sir Ludovic paid not much attention to what she said: he rubbed his eyes, and raised his head, shaking himself with a determination to overcome the drowsiness, which was a trouble to him. “You must sit with me more, my little girl, and make a noise; a little sound is life-like. This stillness gets like”—(he made a pause; was the first word that occurred to him an unpleasant one, not such as was agreeable to pronounce?)—“like sleep,” he added, after a moment, “and I have no wish to go to sleep.”