Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/570

562 helper, and lastly tossed by him unexpectedly into the air, only to fall back with redoubled weight, and crush the frame that was but bowed before, you can form some idea of what had just happened to me. My mother's death, our embarrassments, my loneliness, the hard and to me uncongenial work I had to do, all came upon me together more heavily than at any time since the first fortnight that I spent at Greenville.

But that was not all. Disappointment is hardly the right word to use; for I can truly say that I never made any calculations for the future upon Jim's attentions to me. They were offered so honestly and respectfully that I instinctively felt I could accept them with perfect propriety, and perhaps could scarcely with propriety refuse. I had never once asked myself what they meant, nor whither they tended. But yet I was used to them now, and had learned to prize them far more than I knew; and they must be given up. My heart-strings had unconsciously grown to him, and ought to be torn away. And I think that, beyond grief, beyond the prospect of lonely toil and poverty henceforth, beyond all the rest, was the horror of an idea which came upon me, that I had lost the control of my own mind,—that my peace had passed out of my keeping into the power of another, who, though friendly to me, neither would nor could preserve it for me,—that I was doomed to be henceforward the prey of feelings which I must try to conceal, and perhaps could not for any length of time, which lowered me in my own eyes, and would do so in those of others if they were seen by them, which were wrong, and which I could not help.

These thoughts struck and stung me like so many hornets. Crying, "Mother! mother!" I sprang from my bed, and fell on my knees beside it. I did not suppose it would do much good for me to pray; but I said over and over, if only to stop myself from thinking, "O God, help me! God have mercy on me!" as fast as I could, till the town clock struck five, and I knew that I must begin to dress, and compose myself, if I would appear as usual at six o'clock at the breakfast-table.

My French grammar, was, as usual, set up beside my looking-glass. As usual, I examined myself aloud in one of the exercises, while I went through my toilet. If I did make some mistakes it was no matter. I made so much haste, that I had time before breakfast to correct some of the compositions which I had brought with me from school. The rest, as I often did when hurried, I turned over while I tried to eat my bread and milk. This did not encourage conversation. During the meal, I was only asked how my head was, and answered only that it was better. I had taken care not to shed a tear, so that my eyes were not swollen; and as I had eaten nothing since the morning of the day before, nobody could be surprised to see me pale.

Mrs. Johnson left her seat, too, almost as soon as I took mine. She was in a great bustle, getting her covered wagon under way, and stocked with eggs, butter, cheese, and green vegetables for her weekly trip to the nearest market-town. She was, however, sufficiently mindful of her nephew's lessons to regret that she must leave me poorly when he would not be there to cheer me up, and to tell me to choose what I liked best for my dinner while she was gone.

I chose a boiled chicken and rice. It was what my mother used to like best to have me eat when I was not well. I often rebelled against it when a child; but now I sought by means of it to soothe myself with the fancy that I was still under her direction.

Mrs. Johnson also offered to do for me what I forgot to ask of her,—to look in at the post-office and see if there was not a letter there for me from my only sister. Fanny, for once, had sent me none the week before. Mrs. Johnson went to town, and I to school.

I worked and worried through the lessons,—how, I never knew; but I dare say the children were forbearing;