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Jacqueline, a Story of the Reformation in Holland
Jacqueline a Story of the Reformation in Holland Author:Janet Hardy General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1872 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER V. LOVE AND SORROW. jjERETIC and witch,' these two words, and the long train of evils they represented, made Jacqueline for the next few weeks unhappy in the highest degree. She was in a state of the utmost nervous excitability; she dared not stay in her own room, and down-stairs, if Dame Munzer but spoke to her, or upset the fire-irons, or committed any of the thousand and one awkwardnesses which she was in the daily habit of perpetrating, it put her into such a flutter that she almost swooned away. Her only quiet moments were when the doors were closed and Raymond read aloud, according to his habit, from the Gospels, and yet she did not deceive herself as to the danger of listening. It was forbidden, she knew. It was full of peril, but she could not deny herself the privilege. She only claveto it the more that she was such a poor coward and felt life so sweet. Then she was no heretic; she redoubled her attention to all her religious duties; she went to the confessional once a week, and confessed the petty sins, the petty mistakes, the petty temptations of her quiet, outward monotonous life ; of the warm, trembling, apprehensive inner life of her spirit, she said not a word. The monk looked coldly upon her; it seemed as if he were aware that she was not frankly ingenuous with him, but that might be fancy; she was content to think it was, when weeks passed by, and receiving no fresh molestation from her cousin, the current of her life gradually fell back into its usual easy course, and began to run smoothly again. Her mind ceased to brood perpetually over ideas of danger and fear; she began e...« less