Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 19.djvu/13

1867.] movement comes after the long stillness of a Quaker meeting.

Their lips opened at the same moment. "You don't mean"—began Nurse Byloe, but stopped as she heard Miss Badlam also speaking.

"They need n't drag the pond," she said. "They needn't go beating the woods as if they were hunting a patridge,—though for that matter Myrtle Hazard was always more like a patridge than she was like a pullet. Nothing ever took hold of that girl,—not catechising, nor advising, nor punishing. It's that dreadful will of hers never was broke. I 've always been afraid that she would turn out a child of wrath. Did y' ever watch her at meetin' playing with posies and looking round all the time of the long prayer? That 's what I 've seen her do many and many a time. I 'm afraid—O dear! Miss Byloe, I 'm afraid to say what I 'm afraid of. Men are so wicked, and young girls are full of deceit and so ready to listen to all sorts of artful creturs that take advantage of their ignorance and tender years." She wept once more, this time with sobs that seemed irrepressible.

"Dear suz!" said the nurse, "I won't believe no sech thing as wickedness about Myrtle Hazard. You mean she 's gone an' run off with some good-for-nothin' man or other? If that ain't what y' mean, what do y' mean? It can't be so, Miss Badlam: she 's one o' my babies. At any rate, I handled her when she fust come to this village,—and none o' my babies never did sech a thing. Fifteen year old, and be bringin' a whole family into disgrace! If she was thirty year old, or five-an'-thirty or more, and never 'd had a chance to be married, and if one o' them artful creturs you was talkin' of got hold of her,—then, to be sure,why,dear me!—law! I never thought, Miss Badlam! but then of course you could have had your pickin' and choosin' in the time of it; and I don't mean' to say it 's too late now if you felt called that way, for you 're better lookin' now than some that 's younger, and there 's no accountin' for tastes."

A sort of hysteric twitching that went through the frame of Cynthia Badlam dimly suggested to the old nurse that she was not making her slightly indiscreet personality much better by her explanations. She stopped short, and surveyed the not uncomely person of the maiden lady sitting before her with her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, and one hand clenching the arm of the rocking-chair, as if some spasm had clamped it there. The nurse looked at her with a certain growing interest she had never felt before. It was the first time for some years that she had had such a chance, partly because Miss Cynthia had often been away for long periods,—partly because she herself had been busy professionally. There was no occasion for her services, of course, in the family at The Poplars; and she was always following round from place to place after that ever-lasting migratory six-weeks or less old baby.

There was not a more knowing pair of eyes, in their way, in a circle of fifty miles, than those kindly tranquil orbs that Nurse Byloe fixed on Cynthia Badlam. The silver threads in the side fold of hair, the delicate lines at the corner of the eye, the slight drawing down at the angle of the mouth,—almost imperceptible, but the nurse dwelt upon it,—a certain moulding of the features as of an artist's clay model worked by delicate touches with the fingers, showing that time or pain or grief had had a hand in shaping them, the contours, the adjustment of every fold of the dress, the attitude, the very way of breathing, were all passed through the searching inspection of the ancient expert, trained to know all the changes wrought by time and circumstance. It took not so long as it takes to describe it, but it was an analysis of imponderables, equal to any of Bunsen's with the spectroscope.

Miss Badlam removed her handkerchief and looked in a furtive, questioning way, in her turn, upon the nurse.