Page 386 - bleak-house

The carriage rolled away, and the Frenchwoman, with the
wrappers she had brought hanging over her arm, remained
standing where she had alighted.
I suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear with
as pride itself, and that she was punished for her imperious
manner. Her retaliation was the most singular I could have
imagined. She remained perfectly still until the carriage
had turned into the drive, and then, without the least dis-
composure of countenance, slipped off her shoes, left them
on the ground, and walked deliberately in the same direc-
tion through the wettest of the wet grass.
‘Is that young woman mad?’ said my guardian.
‘Oh, no, sir!’ said the keeper, who, with his wife, was
looking after her. ‘Hortense is not one of that sort. She has
as good a head-piece as the best. But she’s mortal high and
passionate— powerful high and passionate; and what with
having notice to leave, and having others put above her, she
don’t take kindly to it.’
‘But why should she walk shoeless through all that wa-
ter?’ said my guardian.
‘Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!’ said the
man.
‘Or unless she fancies it’s blood,’ said the woman. ‘She’d
as soon walk through that as anything else, I think, when
her own’s up!’
We passed not far from the house a few minutes after-
wards. Peaceful as it had looked when we first saw it, it
looked even more so now, with a diamond spray glittering
all about it, a light wind blowing, the birds no longer hushed

386 Bleak House