Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/219



HEY say "Quaker sermon is best said unsaid;" but, dear reader, my preachment underlies a love-story; and if I did not tell the story then thee would never hear it. It concerns Adam Mott and myself, and a few other souls. If I undertake it, thee must let me begin at the beginning; and I apprehend that for that I need not go back any further than Adam.

I remember the first time I ever saw Friend Mott: father and I were going to meeting on a first day in fourth month. We were turning a corner, when the wind waked out of a sound sleep and blew a great gust of rain in our faces. Then we found we had fallen in with our worthy Friend Potter and a stranger. The stranger was a personable man; but I saw him through the water in my eyes, and that blurred him a little. An adverse wind seemed to blow us together. I was forced against his drab coat before I knew it; and Friend Potter said, with a smile:

"This is our friend, Adam Mott, from Philadelphia. Friend Mott, let me make thee acquainted with Eve Douglass."

"How, now?" said my father. "Is this verily Friend Adam? And why didn't thee come straight to my house?"

He shook hands as if he would never let go; and then I remembered who the man was, for I had often heard mention of Adam. I looked at him critically, and the first thing I saw was his eyes, as blue and almost as unfathomable as the sky. Thee has seen such bright, opaque eyes, with a smile in them. But thee never knows whether the smile means anything or not; that is for thee to find out after thee gets acquainted.

Adam was pleasant to look upon, and his stiff, quiet ways were rather agreeable; but I could think of nothing to say to him. Father wished me to be social. I knew he did. He had said to me, two or three times: "Eve, when Friend Mott goes through the State, he will call on us, and I expect thee to treat him the best thee knows how. I set great store by some of his family."

So I thought I would try to be agreeable; but if I had been flayed alive I could not have thought of anything to say. When father asked the young man to go-and dine with us, and to make our house his home while he remained in town, I repeated the invitation as warmly as I could. He replied that he would go with pleasure; he had long desired to make our acquaintance.

But I judged by the way he gazed at my dress, that he thought I was not much of a "Friend." I did not wear a sugar-scoop bonnet, but a straw cottage with worldly bows on it, and a little lace around the face. My silk gown was mode-colored, and I had on a wicked casaque, which was then the style. Father allowed me to wear what I liked, for I did not "belong to the meeting," and my dear mother before me had been one of the world's people.

They say she was an irrepressible young creature, always on wings. I can just remember the music of her voice as she sang lullabies to me. She died