Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/245

1857.] and without havin’ learnt some things worth knowin’; and though my counsel mayn’t be worth much, still you shall have the best I can give.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” cried Laura, with such a burst of passionate emotion that Miss Blake’s eyes watered at the sight of it. “My dear, dear, dear good friend! you don’t know how glad I shall be, if you will let me do as you say, and tell me what to do, and scold me, and admonish and warn me! Oh, it will be such happiness to have somebody to tell all my real secrets and troubles to! I do so need such a friend sometimes!”

“Don’t I know it, you poor dear?” said Miss Blake, wiping her eyes. “Ha’n’t I been through the same straits myself? None but them that’s been a young gal themselves, an orphan without a mother to confide in and to warn and guide ’em, knows what it is. But I do, my dear and though I shall be a pretty poor substitute for an own mother, I’ll do the best I can.”

“Tira,” said Laura, with a tearful and blushing cheek held up to the good spinster’s, “kiss me, won’t you?—you never have.”

“My dear,” said Miss Blake, preparing to comply with this request by wiping her lips with her apron, “you see I a’n’t one of the kissin’ sort, and I scurcely ever kiss a grown-up person; but here’s my hand, and here’s a kiss,”—with an old-fashioned smack that might have been heard in the next room, for a token that you may always come to me as freely as if I was your mother, relyin’ upon my givin’ you my honest advice and opinion concernin’ any affair that you may ask for counsel upon. And furthermore, as girls naterally have a wish that the very things they need some one to direct ’em the most in sha’n’t be known except by them they tell the secret to, I promise you, my dear, that I’ll be as close as a freemason concernin’ any privacy that you may trust me with, about any offer or courtin’ matter of any kind.”

“Oh, I shall never have any such secrets,” said Laura, blushing; “my sister never lets the beaux come to see me, you know. I’m going to be an old maid.”

“Well, perhaps you will be,” said Miss Blake; “only they gen’ally don’t make old maids of such lookin’ girls as you be.”

But though Miss Blake took Laura into favor, she was by no means inclined to do the same by Mrs. Jaynes, who, having found to her cost that the ill-will of the humble sempstress was not to be lightly contemned, was now plainly anxious to conciliate her. But Statira was proof against all the wheedling and flattery of the parsons wife, behaving towards her always with the same cool civility, and with great self-control,—using none of the frequent opportunities afforded her to make some taunt, or fling, or reproachful allusion to Mrs. Jaynes’s former conduct. Once, to be sure, when urged by the parson’s wife and a committee of the Dorcas Society to invite that respectable body to convene at the Bugbee mansion for labor and refreshment, Statira returned a reply so plainly spoken that it was deemed rude and ungracious.

“Cornelia is mistress of this house, Miss Jaynes,” said she, “and if she belonged to your society, and wanted to have its weekly meetin’s here in turn, I’d do my best to give ’em somethin’ good to eat and drink. But as she has left the matter to me, I say ‘No,’ without any misgivin’ or doubt; and for fear I may be called stingy or unsociable, I’ll tell the reason why I say so,—and besides, it’s due to you to tell it. There’s poor women, even in this town, put to it to get employment by which they can earn bread for themselves and their children. They can’t go out to do housework, for they’ve got young ones too little to carry with ’em, and maybe a whole family of ’em. Takin in sewin’ is their only resource. Well, ma’am, for ladies, well-to-do and rich, to get together, under pretence of good works and charity, and take away work from these poor women, by offerin’ to do it cheaper, underbiddin’