Lewie; Or, The Bended TwigBradford, Sarah H. (Sarah Hopkins)
General
Lewie; Or, The Bended Twig
Bradford, Sarah H. (Sarah Hopkins)
Fiction
When the moon was shining brightly into the room, these performances of
Miss Glenn’s were only annoying, but when the nights were very dark,
and nothing could be seen in the room, it was really horrible to hear
this strange girl chattering and mumbling, now in one corner, now in
another, sometimes in the closet, sometimes under the beds; and one
night, in a fearful thunder-storm, she seemed to be terribly excited,
and when the lightning flashed upon the walls, the shadow of her figure
could be seen strangely exaggerated, performing all manner of wild
antics.
This conduct of Miss Glenn’s puzzled Agnes exceedingly: she could not
decide in her own mind whether the girl was trying to frighten them,
whether she was asleep, or whether she had turns of derangement at
night. Neither of these suppositions seemed exactly to account for her
singular actions. Her evident, and, Agnes doubted not, real distress,
at the possibility of Mrs. Arlington being informed of her nocturnal
performances, and the sacrifices of every kind that she was willing to
make to ensure silence, convinced Agnes that it was not done merely to
alarm them; her vivid remembrance of all that she had said or done in
the night, and her answering questions, and coming to bed so readily
when addressed by Agnes, without any appearance of waking up, led her
to suppose it was not somnambulism; and as Miss Glenn never showed any
sign of wandering of mind in the day time, Agnes could not suppose it
to be derangement. Miss Glenn was a perfect enigma; night after night
disturbing her room-mates with her strange performances, and every
morning going over the same scene of earnest expostulation and
entreaty, accompanied by violent weeping, to induce them not to betray
her to Mrs. Arlington. Poor little Carrie and Ella kept the secret
bravely, though, on the night of the thunder-storm, they were so
terrified by Miss Glenn’s conduct, that, wrapping themselves in the
bed-blankets, and persuading Agnes to lock the door after them, they
went out, and sat upon the stairs till morning. The very next day, two
sisters who slept in another room received tidings of the death of
their mother, which hurried them home; and as they were not to return
that quarter, little Carrie and Ella, with Agnes to intercede for them,
requested to be allowed to take their vacated place. Mrs. Arlington
readily acquiesced, as, she said, it would be much better to have four
in each room.
Thus things went on, till, one night, Agnes was horror-stricken to find
that Miss Glenn was endeavoring to climb out of the window. As I have
said, they were in the third story of the building; and the distance to
the ground being very great, the unfortunate girl would inevitably have
been dashed to pieces upon the flag stones below, had not Agnes
suddenly caught her, and, with a strength that astonished herself,
succeeded in drawing her back into the room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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