Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/750

742 and shed a few still tears, such as poor women who have been wrung out almost dry by fierce griefs lose calmly, without sobs or hysteric convulsions, when they show the scar of a healed sorrow.]

The schoolma'am had jest been killin' herself for a year and a half with waitin' and tendin' and watchin' with that sick mother that was dead now and she was in mournin' for. She didn't say so, but I got the story out of her, and then I knowed why she looked so dreadful pale and poor. By-and-by she begun to get some scholars, and then she would come home sometimes so weak and faint that I was afraid she would drop. One day I handed her a bottle of camphire to smell of, and she took a smell of it, and I thought she'd have fainted right away.—Oh, says she, when she come to, I've breathed that smell for a whole year and more, and it kills me to breathe it again!

The fust thing that ever I see pass between the gentleman inquiries is made about, and her, was on occasion of his makin' some very searchin' remarks about griefs, sech as loss of friends and so on. I see her fix her eye steady on him, and then she kind of trembled and turned white, and the next thing I knew was she was all of a heap on the floor. I remember he looked into her face then and seemed to be seized as if it was with a start or spasm-like,—but I thought nothin' more of it, supposin' it was because he felt so bad at makin' her faint away.

Some has asked me what kind of a young woman she was to look at. Well, folks differ as to what is likely and what is homely. I've seen them that was as pretty as picters in my eyes: cheeks jest as rosy as they could be, and hair all shiny and curly, and little mouths with lips as red as sealin'-wax, and yet one of my boarders that had a great name for makin' marble figgers would say such kind of good looks warn't of no account. I knowed a young lady once that a man drownded himself because she wouldn't marry him, and she might have had her pick of a dozen, but I didn't call her anything great in the way of looks.

All I can say is, that, whether she was pretty or not, she looked like a young woman that knowed what was true and that loved what was good, and she had about as clear an eye and about as pleasant a smile as any man ought to want for every-day company. I've seen a good many young ladies that could talk faster than she could; but if you'd seen her or heerd her when our boardin'-house caught afire, or when there was anything to be done besides speech-makin', I guess you'd like to have stood still and looked on, jest to see that young woman's way of goin' to work.—Dark, rather than light; and slim, but strong in the arms,—perhaps from liftin' that old mother about; for I've seen her heavin' one end of a big heavy chest round that I shouldn't have thought of touchin',—and yet her hands was little and white.—Dressed very plain, but neat, and wore her hair smooth. I used to wonder sometimes she didn't wear some kind of ornaments, bein' a likely young woman, and havin' her way to make in the world, and seein' my daughter wearin' jewelry, which sets her off so much, every day. She never would,—nothin' but a breastpin with her mother's hair in it, and sometimes one little black cross. That made me think she was a Roman Catholic, especially when she got a picter of the Virgin Mary and hung it up in her room; so I asked her, and she shook her head and said these very words,—that she never saw a church-door so narrow she couldn't go in through it, nor so wide that all the Creator's goodness and glory could enter it; and then she dropped her eyes and went to work on a flannel petticoat she was makin',—which I knowed, but she didn't tell me, was for a poor old woman.

I've said enough about them two boarders, but I believe it's all true. Their places is vacant, and I should be very glad to fill 'em with two gentlemen, or with a gentleman and his wife, or any respectable people, be they merried or single.

I've heerd some talk about a friend of that gentleman's comin' to take his place