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I knew there was no arguing Besides, I was painfully stiain

As to the chairs, I did as I was told, crossing the rooht-back chairs fro table between the back s, and setting the chairs down right where we had stood so that we could face her again

She took the plunge:

"It came about in this very room, my introduction to the passion for the ca over both of us and then fixing firrandfather was dying in here, a dreadful old reat monster of our history, the man who built this house, ason, William, tried to keep me away from hi in at that door

"He ordered me to come inside and I was too afraid not to do it, and curious besides He was sitting here where I a table here Just his easy chair, and he sat in it, with a blanket over his lap, and both his hands on his silver-knobbed cane His face was stubbly with his rough beard, and he wore a bib of sorts, and dribbled froe of his mouth

"Oh, what a curse to live to that age to be slobbering as he was, like a bulldog I think of a bulldog every time I think of him And mind you, a sickroom in those days, no matter hoell attended, wasn't what a sickroom is today! It reeked, I tell you If I ever become that old and start to slobber, Quinn has my express perun, or to sink me with morphine! Remember that, Little Boy "

"Of course," I rejoined, winking at her

"Oh, you little devil, I' it can be, and all I ask is permission to say one " She looked at the cameos and then about herself and back to Lestat

"The Old Man, yes, the Old Man," she said, "and he was staring blankly into nothing before he sawto himself until he started to mumble to me There was a little chest of drawers beside him where it was rumored he kept his money, but how I knew this I don't now recall

"As I was saying, the old reprobate told me to come in, and then he unlocked the top drawer of this chest and he took out a s his cane fall over on the floor, he put the box in my hands 'Open that up and hurry,' he said 'Because you're hter and I want you to have it, and your mother is too foolish to want it I said hurry up ¡¯

"Well, I did precisely what he told ht they were fascinating with all their tiny little people on theold

" 'Rebecca at the Well,' he said 'All of them of the same story, Rebecca at the Well ' And then, 'If they tell you Iyou the truth She couldn't be satisfied with cameos and diamonds and pearls, not that one I killed her, or ed her to her death ¡¯

"Of course I estruck by his words," said Aunt Queen, "but instead of being suspicious and horrified, I was i these words todown the side of his mouth to his chin I should have helped hi as compassionate as that

" 'Those were the old days,' he said to h-collared lace blouses, and the cameos looked so very precious at her throat She was so precious when I first brought her here They're all so precious in the beginning and then they turn rotten Except inia Lee Would she had lived forever, reedy and rotten every time

" 'But she was the worst of allme with his mean eyes 'Rebecca, and Rebecca at the Well,' he said 'It was he who gaveht severalthe evil spy that he was, ever watching us; they all came froh there's no taint on it, and you're just a child ' "