Page:The New Penelope.djvu/24

18 and went to work to earn a living. Of course, people were forward enough with their suggestions."

"Of what, for instance?"

"Most persons—in fact everybody that I talked with—said I should have to marry. But I could not think of it; the mention of it always made me sick that first winter. I was recovering strength, and was young; so I thought I need not despair."

"Such a woman could not but have plenty of offers, in a new country especially; but I understand how you must have felt. You could not marry so soon after your husband's death, and it revolted you to be approached on the subject. A wife's love is not so easily transferred."

"You speak as any one might think, not having been in my circumstances. But there was something more than that in the feeling I had. I could not realize the fact of Mr. Greyfield's death. It was as if he had only fallen behind the train, and might come up with us any day. I waited for him all that winter."

"How distressing!" I could not help saying. Mrs. Greyfield sat silent for some minutes, while the storm raged furiously without. She rested her cheek on her hand and gazed into the glowing embers, as if the past were all pictured there in living colors. For me to say, as I did, "how distressing," no doubt seemed to her the merest platitude. There are no conventional forms for the expression of the utmost grief or sympathy. Silence is most eloquent, but I could not keep silence. At last I asked, "What did she do to earn a living?"

"I learned to make men's clothes. There was a clothing store in the place that gave me employment. First I made vests, and then pants; and finally I got to be quite expert, and could earn several dollars a day. But a dollar did not buy much in those times; and oh, the crying spells that I had over my work, before I had mastered it sufficiently to have confidence in myself. Sancho Panza blessed the man