The Gilded Age


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that--I'll read you a line from it!"  
He flew out of the room. A shadow blurred the sunlight in Nancy's face  
-
-there was uneasiness in it, and disappointment. A procession of  
disturbing thoughts began to troop through her mind. Saying nothing  
aloud, she sat with her hands in her lap; now and then she clasped them,  
then unclasped them, then tapped the ends of the fingers together;  
sighed, nodded, smiled--occasionally paused, shook her head. This  
pantomime was the elocutionary expression of an unspoken soliloquy which  
had something of this shape:  
"I was afraid of it--was afraid of it. Trying to make our fortune in  
Virginia, Beriah Sellers nearly ruined us and we had to settle in  
Kentucky and start over again. Trying to make our fortune in Kentucky he  
crippled us again and we had to move here. Trying to make our fortune  
here, he brought us clear down to the ground, nearly. He's an honest  
soul, and means the very best in the world, but I'm afraid, I'm afraid  
he's too flighty. He has splendid ideas, and he'll divide his chances  
with his friends with a free hand, the good generous soul, but something  
does seem to always interfere and spoil everything. I never did think he  
was right well balanced. But I don't blame my husband, for I do think  
that when that man gets his head full of a new notion, he can out-talk a  
machine. He'll make anybody believe in that notion that'll listen to him  
ten minutes--why I do believe he would make a deaf and dumb man believe  
in it and get beside himself, if you only set him where he could see his  
eyes tally and watch his hands explain. What a head he has got! When he  
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