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"But your love for me," he went on, "is the reason why you'll tell me all about yourself and Blackwood Faro into your own "

I sighed I pondered I took the plunge

Chapter7

7

"CHILDHOOD FOR ME INVOLVED two distinct polarities -- being with Goblin, and listening to adults talk

"Goblin and I were the only children here at Blackwood Manor because the tourists who caht children with them, and so I soon learned the vocabulary of adults and that it was fun to play in the kitchen and listen to their endless storytelling and arguing, or to tag after the tour guides -- randfather Pops -- as they went through the house detailing its riches and its legends, including the gloomy tale of Manfred, the Great Old Man

"Great-grandfather Gravier was truly the very best at this, having a deep sonorous voice and being a dignified man in a black suit with a white silk tie to match his white shirt, but he was very old when I was little and he went away to a hospital and died there, before I was five I think, and I have no clear memory of his funeral I don't think I went to his funeral But he had made an indelible impression upon me

"And he at once becahost apparently, on the sole authority ofand seen hi at one in an instant

"Everybody told randfather Gravier was in Heaven, and I ht a candle for hiin on the little altar in the kitchen, which we did -- whichon the little altar for various ancestors, rather like the altars one sometimes sees in Chinese laundries And furthermore, it was said I shouldn't try to scare people

"Nevertheless, during every house tour ever given by anyone at Blackwood Manor, the whole world of our paying guests was told about randfather Gravier

"Pops, Gravier's only son and usto after Gravier's death, and though Pops was far rand storyteller, nevertheless

"Gravier had been a man of considerable accomplishment, in that he had practiced law for years and even served on the bench as a local judge But Pops was a rural man who had no ambition beyond Blackwood Manor, and if that uests, he did it

"My grandainst her will, as she was always up to her elbows in flour and baking powder, but she knew all the faends, and, heavy as she was, looked very pretty in a fine black gabardine dress with a purple orchid corsage on her left breast and a string of pearls around her neck She was one of those women who, inclined to embonpoint, have round smooth wrinkleless faces until they die

"And then there was Jasmine, our beloved black housekeeper, whoe from her kitchen clothes to a swanky black skirt and leopard-skin blouse, along with spike heels of which Aunt Queen would have been proud, to take everyone fro to the concoction of tales that she herself had seen Great-great-grandfather Williaht, or across the hall froreat-aunt Ca up the attic stairs

"I don't know that you noticed Jasure of ashoulders, and, with closets of loving cast-offs frouide, her pale green eyes positively flashing as she tells her earnest ghost stories and sighs before the portraits, or leads the expectant guests to the attic stairs