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look at you!"--"Nay, Harriet, This should not be. Come with me to the carriage; Come! I command you."--"Pooh! And pray, who cares For your commands? I move not till I please. We are half-sisters, Linda, but I hate you." "Excuse me," Linda answered quietly, "But I see no resemblance to my father In you. Your features, form, complexion, all Are quite unlike."--"Silence! We've had enough." "What did she say?" cried Harriet. "Do not heed A word of hers; leave her and come with me." "She said, I bear no likeness to my father: You heard her!"--"'Twas in malice, Harriet. Of course she would say that."--"But I must have That photograph of him upon the wall: 'Tis unlike any that I've ever seen." And with the word she took it from the nail And would have put it in her pocket, had not Linda, with sudden grasp, recovered it. Darker her dark face grew, when Harriet Saw herself baffled; taking out her purse She drew from it a thousand-dollar bill, And said, "Will this procure it?"--"Harriet! You're mad to offer such a sum as that." "Old woman, if you anger me, you'll rue it! I ask you, Linda Percival, if you Will take two thousand dollars for that portrait?" And Linda answered: "I'll not take your money: The portrait you may have without a price; I'm not without a copy."--"Well, I take it; But mark you this: I shall not hate you less For this compliance; nay, shall hate you more; For I do hate you with a burning hatred, And all the more for that smooth Saxon face, With its clear red and white and Grecian outline; That likeness to my father (I can see it), Those golden ringlets and that rounded form. Pray, Madame Percival, where did I get This swarthy hue, since Linda is so fair, And you are far from being a quadroon? Good lady, solve the riddle, if you please." "There! No more idle questions! Two o'clock? That camel's hair at Stewart's will be sold, Unless we go this minute. Such a bargain! Come, my dear, come!" And so, cajoling, coaxing, She drew away her daughter, and the door Closed quickly on the two. But Linda stood In meditation rapt, as thought went back To the dear parents who had sheltered her; Contrasting their ingenuous love sincere And her own filial reverence, with the scene She just had witnessed. So absorbed she was In visions of the past, she did not heed The opening of the door, until a voic
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