It was true--it
happened to _me."_
"How did it happen?" said. Mat, with eager, angry curiosity.
"Only in this way. I wanted to give her a Hair Bracelet myself--my hair
and Blyth's, and so on. And an addle-headed old woman who seems to know
Madonna (that's a name we give her) as well as Blyth himself, and keeps
what she knows just as close, got me into a corner, and talked nonsense
about the whole thing, as old women will."
"What did she say?" asked Mat, more eager, more angry, and more curious
than ever.
"She talked nonsense, I tell you. She said a Hair Bracelet would be
unlucky to Madonna; and then told me Madonna had one already; and then
wouldn't let me ask Blyth whether it was true, because I should get her
into dreadful trouble if I said anything to him about it; besides a
good deal more which you wouldn't care to be bothered with. But I have
told you enough--haven't I?--to show I was not thinking of you, when I
said that just now by way of a joke. Come, shake hands, old fellow.
You're not offended with me, now I have explained everything?"
Mat gave his hand, but he put it out like a man groping in the dark.
His mind was full of that memorable letter about a Hair Bracelet, which
he had found in the box given to him by Joanna Grice.
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