Читать книгу The Perfect World. A romance of strange people and strange places онлайн

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Summer was now waning. Leaves were beginning to fall and folks were making preparations for a hard winter. Mr. Winthrop was still going round on his kindly errands and had become sincerely attached to the two youths who had taken up their residence so near him.

Indeed, there was no one else in the village to whom they could go for social intercourse, and nearly every evening Mrs. Skeet’s little parlour was full of the smoke and chatter of the vicar and his two young friends. It was now the first Tuesday in October, and the evenings were growing chilly. Mrs. Skeet had lighted a nice fire, and they all sat round it enjoying the warmth of its glow.

People outside, passing by, heard the sound of merry laughter, and Mr. Winthrop’s characteristic chuckle, and smiled with him. But Moll Murlock passed the cottage hurriedly and drew her shawl closer round her shoulders, while a slight moan came from between her tightly compressed lips.

Of all the inhabitants of Marshfielden, there was one still who had not forgotten the “Curse.”