"
"So we are on the borders of Africa!" exclaimed Moodie, speaking to
himself aloud.
"Why, do you not see Moodie, that the people grow darker, each day, as
we travel on?"
"The innkeeper at Evora is dark enough," said he, that truth flashing
on him; "but the farmer and his girls are browner still by many a
shade."
"You will think them fair," said Lady Mabel, "when you have traveled
far enough onward," and, leaving him confused and alarmed, she
cantered on to join Mrs. Shortridge.
Now Moodie was a shrewd man, perhaps a little too shrewd, with an eye
open to human depravity; he was learned, too, in his way; many a heavy
tome of Scotch controversial divinity had been thumbed by him as
carefully as his Bible; but he never dwelt on any thing he found there
not sustaining his preconceived notions. He involuntarily slighted
those parts even of Scripture that he could not wrest to his purpose.
Many an historical and traditionary fact, too, floated loosely on his
mind; but his geographical education had been sadly neglected. A
topographical knowledge of half a dozen shires, a general notion of
the shape of old Scotland, and a hazy outline of the sister kingdom,
made up all he had attained to.
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