"Well, let us look over the field," said my wife. "What is there for woman?"
"In the first place," said I, "come the professions requiring natural genius,—authorship, painting, sculpture, with the subordinate arts of photographing, coloring, and finishing; but when all is told, these furnish employment to a very limited number,—almost as nothing to the whole. Then there is teaching, which is profitable in its higher branches, and perhaps the very pleasantest of all the callings open to woman; but teaching is at present an overcrowded profession, the applicants everywhere outnumbering the places. Architecture and landscape-gardening are arts every way suited to the genius of woman, and there are enough who have the requisite mechanical skill and mathematical education; and though never yet thought of for the sex, that I know of, I do not despair of seeing those who shall find in this field a profession at once useful and elegant. When women plan dwelling-houses, the vast body of tenements to be let in our cities will wear a more domestic and comfortable air, and will be built more with reference to the real wants of their inmates."
"I have thought," said Bob, "thatagenciesof various sorts, as canvassing the country for the sale of books, maps, and engravings, might properly employ a great many women. There is a large class whose health suffers from confinement and sedentary occupations, who might, I think, be both usefully and agreeably employed in business of this sort, and be recruiting their health at the same time."
"Then," said my wife, "there is the medical profession."
"Yes," said I. "The world is greatly obliged to Miss Blackwell and other noble pioneers who faced and overcame the obstacles to the attainment of a thorough medical education by females. Thanks to them, a new and lucrative profession is now open to educated women in relieving the distresses of their own sex; and we may hope that in time, through their intervention, the care of the sick may also become the vocation of cultivated, refined, intelligentwomen instead of being left, as heretofore, to the ignorant and vulgar? The experience of our late war has shown us what women of a high class morally and intellectually can do in this capacity. Why should not this experience inaugurate a new and sacred calling for refined and educated women? Why should notNURSINGbecome a vocation equal in dignity and in general esteem to the medical profession, of which it is the right hand? Why should our dearest hopes, in the hour of their greatest peril, be committed into the hands of Sairey Gamps, when the world has seen Florence Nightingales?"
"Yes, indeed," said my wife; "I can testify, from my own experience, that the sufferings and dangers of the sickbed, for the want of intelligent, educated nursing, have been dreadful. A prejudiced, pig-headed, snuff-taking old woman, narrow-minded and vulgar, and more confident in her own way than seven men that can render a reason, enters your house at just the hour and moment when all your dearest earthly hopes are brought to a crisis. She becomes absolute dictator over your delicate, helpless wife and your frail babe,—the absolute dictator of all in the house. If it be her sovereign will and pleasure to enact all sorts of physiological absurdities in the premises, who shall say her nay? "She knows her business, she hopes!" And if it be her edict, as it was of one of her class whom I knew, that each of her babies shall eat four baked beans the day it is four days old, eat them it must; and if the baby die in convulsions four days after, it is set down as the mysterious will of an overruling Providence.
"I know and have seen women lying upon laced pillows under silken curtains, who have been bullied and dominated over in the hour of their greatest helplessness by ignorant and vulgar tyrants, in a way that would scarce be thought possible in civilized society, and children that have been injured or done to death by the same means. A celebrated physician told me of a babe whose eyesight was nearly ruined by its nurse taking a fancy to wash its eyes with camphor, "to keep it from catching cold," she said. I knew another infant that was poisoned by the nurse giving it laudanum in some of those patent nostrums which these ignorant creatures carry secretly in their pockets, to secure quiet in their little charges. I knew one delicate woman who never recovered from the effects of being left at her first confinement in the hands of an ill-tempered, drinking nurse, and whose feeble infant was neglected and abused by this woman in a way to cause lasting injury. In the first four weeks of infancy, the constitution is peculiarly impressible; and infants of a delicate organization may, if frightened and ill treated, be the subjects of just such a shock to the nervous system as in mature age comes from the sudden stroke of a great affliction or terror. A bad nurse may affect nerves predisposed to weakness in a manner they never will recover from. I solemnly believe that the constitutions of more women are broken up by bad nursing in their first confinement than by any other cause whatever. And yet there are at the same time hundreds and thousands of women wanting the means of support, whose presence in a sick-room would be a benediction. I do trust that Miss Blackwell's band of educated nurses will not be long in coming, and that the number of such may increase till they effect a complete revolution in this vocation. A class of cultivated, well-trained, intelligent nurses would soon elevate the employment of attending on the sick into the noble calling it ought to be, and secure for it its appropriate rewards."
"There is another opening for woman," said I,—"in the world of business. The system of commercial colleges now spreading over our land is a new and a most important development of our times. There that large class of young men who have either no time or no inclination for an extended classical educationcan learn what will fit them for that active material life which in our broad country needs so many workers. But the most pleasing feature of these institutions is, that the complete course is open to women no less than to men, and women there may acquire that knowledge of book-keeping and accounts, and of the forms and principles of business transactions, which will qualify them for some of the lucrative situations hitherto monopolized by the other sex. And the expenses of the course of instruction are so arranged as to come within the scope of very moderate means. A fee of fifty dollars entitles a woman to the benefit of the whole course, and she has the privilege of attending at any hours that may suit her own engagements and convenience."
"Then, again," said my wife, "there are the departments of millinery and dress-making and the various branches of needle-work, which afford employment to thousands of women; there is type-setting, by which many are beginning to get a living; there are the manufactures of cotton, woollen, silk, and the numberless useful articles which employ female hands in their fabrication,—all of them opening avenues by which, with more or less success, a subsistence can be gained."
"Well, really," said Bob, "it would appear, after all, that there are abundance of openings for women. What is the cause of the outcry and distress? How is it that we hear of women starving, driven to vice and crime by want, when so many doors of useful and profitable employment stand open to them?"
"The question would easily be solved," said my wife, "if you could once see the kind and class of women who thus suffer and starve. There may be exceptions, but too large a portion of them are girls and women whocan or will do no earthly thing well,—and what is worse, are not willing to take the pains to be taught to do anything well. I will describe to you one girl, and you will find in every intelligence-office a hundred of her kind to five thoroughly trained ones.
"Imprimis: she is rather delicate and genteel-looking, and you may know from the arrangement of her hair just what the last mode is of disposing of rats or waterfalls. She has a lace bonnet with roses, a silk mantilla, a silk dress trimmed with velvet, a white skirt with sixteen tucks and an embroidered edge, a pair of cloth gaiters, underneath which are a pair of stockings without feet, the only pair in her possession. She has no under-linen, and sleeps at night in the working-clothes she wears in the day. She never seems to have in her outfit either comb, brush, or tooth-brush of her own,—neither needles, thread, scissors, nor pins: her money, when she has any, being spent on more important articles, such as the lace bonnet or silk mantilla, or the rats and waterfalls that glorify her head. When she wishes to sew, she borrows what is needful of a convenient next neighbor; and if she gets a place in a family as second girl, she expects to subsist in these respects by borrowing of the better-appointed servants, or helping herself from the family stores.
"She expects, of course, the very highest wages, if she condescends to live out, and by help of a trim outside appearance and the many vacancies that are continually occurring in households she gets places, where her object is to do just as little of any duty assigned to her as possible, to hurry through her performances, put on her fine clothes, and go a-gadding. She is on free and easy terms with all the men she meets, and ready at jests and repartee, sometimes far from seemly. Her time of service in any one place lasts indifferently from a fortnight to two or three months, when she takes her wages, buys her a new parasol in the latest style, and goes back to the intelligence-office. In the different families where she has lived she has been told a hundred times the proprieties of household life, how to make beds, arrange rooms, wash china, glass, and silver, and settables; but her habitual rule is to try in each place how small and how poor services will be accepted. When she finds less will not do, she gives more. When the mistress follows her constantly and shows an energetic determination to be well served, she shows that shecanserve well; but such attention relaxes, she slides back again. She is as destructive to a house as a fire; the very spirit of wastefulnes is in her; she cracks the china, dents the silver, stops the water-pipes with rubbish; and after she is gone, there is generally a sum equal to half her wages to be expended in repairing the effects of her carelessness. And yet there is one thing to be said for her: she is quite as careful of her employer's things as of her own. The full amount of her mischief often does not appear at once, as she is glib of tongue, adroit in apologies, and lies with as much alertness and as little thought of conscience as a blackbird chatters. It is difficult for people who have been trained from childhood in the school of verities,—who have been lectured for even the shadow of a prevarication, and shut up in disgrace for a lie, till truth becomes a habit of their souls,—it is very difficult for people so educated to understand how to get on with those who never speak the truth except by mere accident, who assert any and every thing that comes into the heads with all the assurance and all the energy of perfect verity.
"What becomes of this girl? She finds means, by begging, borrowing, living out, to keep herself extremely trim and airy for a certain length of time, till the rats and waterfalls, the lace hat and parasol, and the glib tongue, have done their work in making a fool of some honest young mechanic who earns three dollars a day. She marries him with no higher object than to have somebody to earn money for her to spend. And what comes of such marriages?
"That isoneending of her career; the other is on the street, in haunts of vice, in prison, in drunkenness, and death.
"Whence come these girls? They are as numerous as yellow butterflies in autumn; they flutter up to cities from the country; they grow up from mothers who ran the same sort of career before them; and the reason why in the end they fall out of all reputable the moment employment and starve on poor wages is, that they become physically, mentally, and morally incapable of rendering any service which society will think worth paying for."
"I remember," said I, "that the head of the most celebrated dress-making establishment in New York, in reply to the appeals of the needle-women of the city for sympathy and wages, came out with published statements to this effect: that the difficulty lay not in unwillingness of employers to pay what work was worth, but in finding any work worth paying for; that she had many applicants, but among them few who could be of real use to her; that she, in common with everybody in this country who has any kind of serious responsibilities to carry, was continually embarrassed for want of skilled work-people, who could take and go on with the labor of her various departments without her constant supervision; that out of a hundred girls, there would not be more than five to whom she could give a dress to be made and dismiss it from her mind as something certain to be properly done.
"Let people individually look around their own little sphere and ask themselves if they know any woman really excelling in anyvaluablecalling or accomplishment who is suffering for want of work. All of us know seamstresses, dress-makers, nurses, and laundresses, who have made themselves such a reputation, and are so beset and overcrowded with work, that the whole neighborhood is constantly on its knees to them with uplifted hands. The fine seamstress, who can cut and make trousseaus and layettes in elegant perfection, is always engaged six months in advance; the pet dress-maker of a neighborhood must be engaged in May for September, and in September for May;a laundress who sends your clothes home in nice order always has all the work that she can do. Good work in any department is the rarest possible thing in our American life; and it is a fact that the great majority of workers, both in the family and out, do only tolerably well,—not so badly that it actually cannot be borne, yet not so well as to be a source of real, thorough satisfaction. The exceptional worker in every neighborhood, who does things reallywell, can always set her own price, and is always having more offering than she can possibly do.
"The trouble, then, in finding employment for women lies deeper than the purses or consciences of the employers; it lies in the want of education in women: the want ofeducation, I say,—meaning by education that which fits a woman for practical and profitable employment in life, and not mere common school learning."
"Yes," said my wife; "for it is a fact that the most troublesome and hopeless persons to provide for are often those who have a good medium education, but no feminine habits, no industry, no practical calculation, no muscular strength, and no knowledge of any one of woman's peculiar duties. In the earlier days of New England, women, as a class, had far fewer opportunities for acquiring learning, yet were far better educated, physically and morally, than now. The high school did not exist; at the common school they learned reading, writing, and arithmetic, and practised spelling; while at home they did the work of the household. They were cheerful, bright, active, ever on the alert, able to do anything, from the harnessing and driving of a horse to the finest embroidery. The daughters of New England in those days looked the world in the face without a fear. They shunned no labor; they were afraid of none; and they could always find their way to a living."
"But although less instructed in school learning," said I, "they showed no deficiency in intellectual acumen. I see no such women, nowadays, as some I remember of that olden time,—women whose strong minds and ever active industry carried on reading and study side by side with household toils.
"I remember a young lady friend of mine, attending a celebrated boarding-school, boarded in the family of a woman who had never been to school longer than was necessary to learn to read and write, yet who was a perfect cyclopedia of general information. The young scholar used to take her Chemistry and Natural Philosophy into the kitchen, where her friend was busy with her household work, and read her lessons to her, that she might have the benefit of her explanations; and so, while the good lady scoured her andirons or kneaded her bread, she lectured to herprotégéeon mysteries of science far beyond the limits of the text-book. Many of the graduates of our modern high schools would find it hard to shine in conversation on the subjects they had studied, in the searching presence of some of these vigorous matrons of the olden time, whose only school had been the leisure hours gained by energy and method from their family cares."
"And in those days," said my wife, "there lived in our families a class of American domestics, women of good sense, and good powers of reflection, who applied this sense and power of reflection to household matters. In the early part of my married life, I myself had American 'help'; and they were not only excellent servants, but trusty and invaluable friends. But now, all this class of applicants for domestic service have disappeared, I scarce know why or how. All I know is, there is no more a Betsey or a Lois, such as used to take domestic cares off my shoulders so completely."
"Good heavens! where are they?" cried Bob. "Where do they hide? I would search through the world after such a prodigy!"
"The fact is," said I, "there has been a slow and gradual reaction againsthousehold labor in America. Mothers began to feel that it was a sort ofcurse, to be spared, if possible, to their daughters; women began to feel that they were fortunate in proportion as they were able to be entirely clear of family responsibilities. Then Irish labor began to come in, simultaneously with a great advance in female education.
"For a long while nothing was talked of, written of, thought of, in teachers' meetings, conventions, and assemblies, but the neglected state of female education; and the whole circle of the arts and sciences was suddenly introduced into our free-school system, from which needle-work as gradually and quietly was suffered to drop out. The girl who attended the primary and high school had so much study imposed on her that she had no time for sewing or housework; and the delighted mother was only too happy to darn her stockings and do the housework alone, that her daughter might rise to a higher plane than she herself had attained to. The daughter, thus educated, had, on coming to womanhood, no solidity of muscle, no manual dexterity, no practice or experience in domestic life; and if she were to seek a livelihood, there remained only teaching, or some feminine trade, or the factory."
"These factories," said my wife, "have been the ruin of hundreds and hundreds of our once healthy farmers' daughters and others from the country. They go there young and unprotected; they live there in great boarding-houses, and associate with a promiscuous crowd, without even such restraints of maternal supervision as they would have in great boarding-schools; their bodies are enfeebled by labor often necessarily carried on in a foul and heated atmosphere; and at the hours when off duty, they are exposed to all the dangers of unwatched intimacy with the other sex.
"Moreover, the factory-girl learns and practises but one thing,—some one mechanical movement, which gives no scope for invention, ingenuity, or any other of the powers called into play by domestic labor; so that she is in reality unfitted in every way for family duties.
"Many times it has been my lot to try, in my family service, girls who have left factories; and I have found them wholly useless for any of the things which a woman ought to be good for. They knew nothing of a house, or what ought to be done in it; they had imbibed a thorough contempt of household labor, and looked upon it but as adernier resort; and it was only the very lightest of its tasks that they could even begin to think of. I remember I tried to persuade one of these girls, the pretty daughter of a fisherman, to take some lessons in washing and ironing. She was at that time engaged to be married to a young mechanic, who earned something like two or three dollars a day.
"'My child,' said I, 'you will need to understand all kinds of housework, if you are going to be married.'
"She tossed her little head,—
"'Indeed, she wasn't going to trouble herself about that.'
"'But who will get up your husband's shirts?'
"'Oh, he must put them out. I'm not going to be married to make a slave of myself!'
"Another young factory-girl, who came for table and parlor work, was so full of airs and fine notions, that it seemed as difficult to treat with her as with a princess. She could not sweep, because it blistered her hands, which, in fact, were long and delicate; she could not think of putting them into hot dish-water, and for that reason preferred washing the dishes in cold water; she required a full hour in the morning to make her toilet; she was laced so tightly that she could not stoop without vertigo, and her hoops were of dimensions which seemed to render it impossible for her to wait upon table; she was quite exhausted with the effort of ironing the table-napkins and chamber-towels;—yet she could not think of 'living out' under two dollars a week.
"Both these girls had had a good free-school education, and could read any amount of novels, write a tolerable letter, but had not learned anything with sufficient accuracy to fit them for teachers. They were pretty, and their destiny was to marry and lie a dead weight on the hands of some honest man, and to increase, in their children, the number of incapables."
"Well," said Bob, "what would you have? What is to be done?"
"In the first place," said I, "I would have it felt by those who are seeking to elevate woman, that the work is to be done, not so much by creating for her new spheres of action as by elevating her conceptions of that domestic vocation to which God and Nature have assigned her. It is all very well to open to her avenues of profit and advancement in the great outer world; but, after all,to make and keep a homeis, and ever must be, a woman's first glory, her highest aim. No work of art can compare with a perfect home; the training and guiding of a family must be recognized as the highest work a woman can perform; and female education ought to be conducted with special reference to this.
"Men aretrainedto be lawyers, to be physicians, to be mechanics, by long and self-denying study and practice. A man cannot even make shoes merely by going to the high school and learning reading, writing, and mathematics; he cannot be a book-keeper, or a printer, simply from general education.
"Now women have a sphere and profession of their own,—a profession for which they are fitted by physical organization, by their own instincts, and to which they are directed by the pointing and manifest finger of God,—and that sphere isfamily life.
"Duties to the State and to public life they may have; but the public duties of women must bear to their family ones the same relation that the family duties of men bear to their public ones.
"The defect in the late efforts to push on female education is, that it has been for her merely general, and that it has left out and excluded all that is professional; and she undertakes the essential duties of womanhood, when they do devolve on her, without any adequate preparation."
"But is it possible for a girl to learn at school the things which fit her for family life?" said Bob.
"Why not?" I replied. "Once it was thought impossible in schools to teach girls geometry, or algebra, or the higher mathematics; it was thought impossible to put them through collegiate courses: but it has been done, and we see it. Women study treatises on political economy in schools; and why should not the study of domestic economy form a part of every school course? A young girl will stand up at the blackboard, and draw and explain the compound blowpipe, and describe all the process of making oxygen and hydrogen. Why should she not draw and explain a refrigerator as well as an air-pump? Both are to be explained on philosophical principles. When a school-girl, in her Chemistry, studies the reciprocal action of acids and alkalies, what is there to hinder the teaching her its application to the various processes of cooking where acids and alkalies are employed? Why should she not be led to see how effervescence and fermentation can be made to perform their office in the preparation of light and digestible bread? Why should she not be taught the chemical substances by which food is often adulterated, and the tests by which such adulterations are detected? Why should she not understand the processes of confectionery, and know how to guard against the deleterious or poisonous elements that are introduced into children's sugar-plums and candies? Why, when she learns the doctrine ofmordants, the substances by which different colors are set, should she not learn it with some practical view to future life, so that she may know how to set the color of a fading calico or restore the color of a spotted one? Why, in short, when a girl has labored through a profound chemicalwork, and listened to courses of chemical lectures, should she come to domestic life, which presents a constant series of chemical experiments and changes, and go blindly along as without chart or compass, unable to tell what will take out a stain or what will brighten a metal, what are common poisons and what their antidotes, and not knowing enough of the laws of caloric to understand how to warm a house, or of the laws of atmosphere to know how to ventilate one? Why should the preparation of food, that subtile art on which life, health, cheerfulness, good temper, and good looks so largely depend, forever be left in the hands of the illiterate and vulgar?
"A benevolent gentleman has lately left a large fortune for the founding of a university for women, and the object is stated to be to give women who have already acquired a general education the means of acquiring a professional one, to fit themselves for some employment by which they may gain a livelihood.
"In this institution the women are to be instructed in book-keeping, stenography, telegraphing, photographing, drawing, modelling, and various other arts; but so far as I remember, there is no proposal to teach domestic economy as at leastoneof woman's professions.
"Why should there not be a professor of domestic economy in every large female school? Why should not this professor give lectures, first on house-planning and building, illustrated by appropriate apparatus? Why should not the pupils have presented to their inspection models of houses planned with reference to economy, to ease of domestic service, to warmth, to ventilation, and to architectural appearance? Why should not the professor go on to lecture further on house-fixtures, with models of the best mangles, washing-machines, clothes-wringers, ranges, furnaces, and cooking-stoves, together with drawings and apparatus illustrative of domestic hydraulics, showing the best contrivances for bathing-rooms and the obvious principles of plumbing, so that the pupils may have some idea how to work the machinery of a convenient house when they have it, and to have such conveniences introduced when wanting? If it is thought worth while to provide at great expense apparatus for teaching the revolutions of Saturn's moons and the precession of the equinoxes, why should there not be some also to teach what it may greatly concern a woman's earthly happiness to know?
"Why should not the professor lecture on home-chemistry, devoting his first lecture to bread-making? and why might not a batch of bread be made and baked and exhibited to the class, together with specimens of morbid anatomy in the bread line,—the sour cotton bread of the baker,—the rough, big-holed bread,—the heavy, fossil bread,—the bitter bread of too much yeast,—and the causes of their defects pointed out? And so with regard to the various articles of food,—why might not chemical lectures be given on all of them, one after another?—In short, it would be easy to trace out a course of lectures on common things to occupy a whole year, and for which the pupils, whenever they come to have homes of their own, will thank the lecturer to the last day of their life.
"Then there is no impossibility in teaching needle-work, the cutting and fitting of dresses, in female schools. The thing is done very perfectly in English schools for the working classes. A girl trained at one of these schools came into a family I once knew. She brought with her a sewing-book, in which the process of making various articles was exhibited in miniature. The several parts of a shirt were first shown, each perfectly made, and fastened to a leaf of the book by itself, and then the successive steps of uniting the parts, till finally appeared a miniature model of the whole. The sewing was done with red thread, so that every stitch might show and any imperfection be at once remedied. The same process was pursued with regard to other garments, and a goodgeneral idea of cutting and fitting them was thus given to an entire class of girls.
"In the same manner the care and nursing of young children and the tending of the sick might be made the subject of lectures. Every woman ought to have some general principles to guide her with regard to what is to be done in case of the various accidents that may befall either children or grown people, and of their lesser illnesses, and ought to know how to prepare comforts and nourishment for the sick. Hawthorne's satirical remarks upon the contrast between the elegant Zenobia's conversation and the smoky porridge she made for him when he was an invalid might apply to the volunteer cookery of many charming women."
"I think," said Bob, "that your Professor of Domestic Economy would find enough to occupy his pupils."
"In fact," said I, "were domestic economy properly honored and properly taught, in the manner described, it would open a sphere of employment to so many women in the home life, that we should not be obliged to send our women out to California or the Pacific, to put an end to an anxious and aimless life.
"When domestic work is sufficiently honored to be taught as an art and science in our boarding-schools and high schools, then possibly it may acquire also dignity in the eyes of our working classes, and young girls who have to earn their own living may no longer feel degraded in engaging in domestic service. The place of a domestic in a family may become as respectable in their eyes as a place in a factory, in a printing-office, in a dress-making or millinery establishment, or behind the counter of a shop.
"In America there is no class which will confess itself the lower class, and a thing recommended solely for the benefit of any such class finds no one to receive it.
"If the intelligent and cultivated look down on household-work with disdain, if they consider it as degrading, a thing to be shunned by every possible device, they may depend upon it that the influence of such contempt of woman's noble duties will flow downward, producing a like contempt in every class in life.
"Our sovereign princesses learn the doctrine of equality very quickly, and are not going to sacrifice themselves to what is not consideredde bon tonby the upper classes; and the girl with the laced hat and parasol, without underclothes, who does her best to "shirk" her duties as housemaid, and is looking for marriage as an escape from work, is a fair copy of her mistress, who married for much the same reason, who hates housekeeping, and would rather board or do anything else than have the care of a family;—the one is about as respectable as the other.
"When housekeeping becomes an enthusiasm, and its study and practice a fashion, then we shall have in America that class of persons to rely on for help in household labors who are now going to factories, to printing-offices, to every kind of toil, forgetful of the best life and sphere of woman."
It was not long before I was established in my new situation. Mr. Bray said, roughly,—
"I s'pose new friends is better than them your father picked out for you; leastways you must try 'em and see. I don't say as I wouldn't on no account take you back, if I found you couldn't git along without me. You mustn't have that look of bein' twenty mile away, when a hoss's leg is in your hand, and you're ready to shoe him; for I sha'n't be by to bring you back again."
Mrs. Bray said,—
"Well, it is rather a long ride for the grand folks 'way down to Lower Warren, and Amos bein' a family man, of course they wouldn't expect him to be a-movin' to suit them; and as he's had the trainin' of you, they think it'll be all right. I hope it will, I'm sure."
Little Annie looked sadder than usual, but said nothing, until the morning when I was to commence work at the new forge; then she followed me to the door with her little straw basket, in which she had packed a nice lunch, covered with lilac-leaves from the bush by the front door.
"You said you shouldn't have time to come home to dinner, as you go to Hillside this afternoon, Sandy," she said, apologetically, as she slipped it into my hand. "I hope it will be long before you go away altogether, it would be so lonely without you"; and the tears filled her blue eyes.
Why was that gentle, appealing beauty always luring me back to the village life, whose rustic, homely ways I was learning to despise? I could not tell; but she, part and parcel of it though she was, bound to it by parentage and pursuits, had never failed to touch my heart. I stooped and kissed her, as I so often had done before, and answered, laughing,—
"Go away? Never, Annie, until I take you with me."
She blushed; the old happiness stole back into her eyes at the first kind word from me, and she returned to her simple, daily tasks; while I, filled with ambition and pride in my new life, soon dismissed her from my mind.
I had meant to ask Annie to help me in arranging my new forge, as she had helped me with my first picture; and when the necessary purchases were made and in their places, when the woman living in the other part of the building I occupied had swept my floor and washed my solitary window, which was at one end and looked toward the hill, I resolutely determined to delay the unpacking of a box of pictures and books, of which the latter were to fill a small shelf above, and the former to hang around the window, until I could bring Annie up the next day to assist me. Deciding to read, therefore, until some custom should fall to me, I knocked a narrow board off the top of the box and slipped out a single book, when I heard the tramp of horses' feet, and, going to the door, saw the party from Hillside returning from a horseback ride. Mr. Lang, mounted on his magnificent horse, hurried forward and rode fairly within the smithy.
"Why, Sandy, actually established? I thought it was but right that Warrior should be your first visitor. See how he paws! He knows you, and will be getting a shoe off for your benefit."
I patted my old friend, who arched his neck still more proudly, as though hardly brooking the familiarity, when Miss Merton, Miss Darry, and Mr. Leopold rode up.
"Are you entirely ready for work, Sandy?" asked Miss Darry, after the first greeting.
"Ready for work, but not quite in order here," I replied.
"But if anything is lacking, why havea book there? Why not arrange matters at once?" she continued, with her customary energy.
"What is that shelf for? and that old box? You may as well confess to any little adornments at once."
"Ihavea few books, and just one or two old pictures there," I replied, reluctantly; "but I have made up my mind not to arrange them until to-morrow: little Annie Bray can help me then, and the poor child has seldom anything to amuse her."
"Nonsense, Sandy! Little Annie Bray cannot put the books on that high shelf without your assistance, and very probably you will have other employment to-morrow. Then you will make yourself late for Mr. Leopold, and will begin wrong, which is about equal to going wrong all the way through. I have half a mind to dismount and help you myself. It will be a charming combination of forge and studio, won't it, Mr. Leopold?"
Mr. Leopold smiled, but assented, as though his interest in the matter was by no means proportioned to hers; and I could but notice that both Miss Merton and Mr. Lang looked as if quite enough of this sunny spring morning had been spent in examination of the new forge. So I replied, hastily,—
"Oh, well, Miss Darry, if it will give you any satisfaction, I'll finish my work here at once."
"Thank you, Sandy. And now I think of it, Alice, a Madeira vine can be trained from the shelf up over the window to make a delightful green curtain. A man, you know, never understands exactly how to plan these things."
"Ah, but I have planned, Miss Darry. This box will occupy the window; but it is to be filled with water, aquatic plants, insects, and tiny fish, for Annie's pleasure, when she makes me a visit."
"You mean to establish a kind of nursery, I see. I hope you won't waste your time, Sandy," retorted Miss Darry.
I could not fail to see that her disapproval of my interest in Annie Bray had not abated; for no plans formed with reference to her seemed to meet with approbation. And so I was the more pleased when Miss Merton turned to me, as they were about to ride away, saying,—
"I forgot to ask you the other evening to bring that sweet little girl to Hillside some day, or let her come alone. I will find plenty of amusement for her that shall not interfere with the work which Miss Darry is so desirous should go on."
They all laughed merrily, as they rode away; but I felt in no gay mood. I was provoked that I had yielded so readily to Miss Darry's wishes, and irritated by her evident dislike to the only person in the world whose affection I possessed.
"Why notdismount and help me herself?" I muttered, impatiently, as I broke open the cover of my box. "Far above me as she is, she has no right to interfere with my friendship with Annie, if she does not give me her own in its place."
However, as the morning wore on, I became interested in my new arrangements; the decorations of my low attic bedroom were displayed to greater advantage in the forge, where I should now pass so much more of my time; and as for Annie, after all, she would enjoy seeing it far better when completed. Before noon, too, I had opened an account with one of the most prosperous farmers in the neighborhood, and in hard manual labor my excitement passed away; and I presented myself at Hillside at the appointed hour, as grateful to us inmates as ever.
Perhaps no art differs more widely with individual mind and temperament than that of teaching. I soon appreciated this under Mr. Leopold's training. For the first few lessons, I was put to no copying, given no verbal instruction; he showed me how to mix oil-colors, expecting his to be preparedfor him, when, in his eagerness to produce an effect, he did not care to stop for the purpose himself; and for the rest, advised me to watch him, which I did narrowly, while he worked sometimes by the hour without speaking. When I commenced painting, therefore, I felt as though I was making constant discoveries, and began to think, in the conceit of my youth and developing power, that I was working without other guide than my own intuition, until I found a number of serious errors indicated. Miss Darry's teaching made me feel that I could not do without her; Mr. Leopold's, that just so far as he carried me, I in turn could take some one else.
The summer days wore on. My hands grew rougher and coarser with hard work, yet just as surely increased their dexterity in holding the brush with a firm grasp and giving flexible and delicate strokes to finer work. My lessons and new forge left but little time for the cottage and Annie Bray now. Moreover, she, too, changed as the months wore on. When did I ever imagine, with all my growing plans and manhood, that she also was to have her work and purpose in the world? Yet she had made her visit to Hillside, had been not only amused and delighted, but instructed, by all she saw there. I was too deeply engrossed in self-development to continue my attention to her studies; but Miss Merton, inspired by Miss Darry's example, or attracted by the modest sweetness so congenial to her own womanly character, undertook the unwonted occupation of teaching; and Mr. Lang, greatly to my surprise, encouraged her in it. Three afternoons in the week Annie went to Hillside to receive a course of instruction, barren of system and conducted with supreme disregard of plainer and more useful branches, yet bringing out in a graceful way all her peculiarly refined tastes. Annie's hours rarely admitted of my walking home with her; and though occasionally she stopped at the forge, on her way through the village, it was only for a moment, and that often a busy one with me. She had grown taller and paler, sadder in expression, too, I fancied, notwithstanding the new interest at Hillside. But then she was leaving childhood behind her; her father had been more rough than ever since I left him; and with a momentary pity and wonder that she was more shy of my fond and brotherly ways than formerly, I ascribed it to these ordinary causes, and kept steadily at my work. It was not for me, theprotégéof so brilliant a woman as Frank Darry, and a rising genius, to pause in my career for the pale cheeks of the village blacksmith's daughter.
My intercourse with Mr. Leopold did not become more familiar with time. The idea of his not looking like a genuine artist, the disappointment and failure to comprehend his pictures, changed into awe of the inner force of the man, as I beheld his patient, earnest labor. To my shallow comprehension of the worth of genius, his persistent effort, after the attainment of all I hoped to realize, was marvellous. He was rich, famed, cultivated, yet the ideal excellence hovered ever above him, waiting like a resurrection body to clothe the escaped soul of inspiration; and for this he toiled more unremittingly than I in my struggle for existence even in the world of Art. The secret of this man's soul was not, however, revealed to my questioning. Ever considerate and kind, he was no friend in any sense implying mutual interchange of thought or confidence. With Miss Darry, on the contrary, he was his free and natural self. Whenever I saw them together, I was conscious that his great nature went out irresistibly to meet hers, a fact of which it seemed to me she was far less aware than I. She walked and drove with him, but merely because Miss Merton and Mr. Lang were engrossed with each other, and as a side-play from the main object of her life.
I had been employed for several weeks upon a picture of greater importance than any before attempted. Miss Darry confidently declared it would be accepted at the autumn exhibition ofpaintings in the city; and Mr. Leopold briefly advised me to make the attempt, backed by his favor to get it in. It was the working up of the odd fancy in which Annie and I had indulged so long ago,—that the forest haunts were not deserted, even though man did not invade them. In a clearing in the midst of the woods I had assembled the familiar squirrels, birds, and flowers, to play their part in the revels Nature takes on summer afternoons; and from the gnarled trunks and twisted vines whose grotesque involutions hinted the serpent-life within to the elves which peered from beneath the broad dank leaves, I had reasserted the old childish faith.
As I have said, Miss Darry approved my picture, though only as a preliminary to better things, saying,—
"You must paint Chimborazo, or some of the mammoth California scenery, Sandy. The microscope, not the canvas, is the proper instrument by which to scrutinize the minute. Genius certainly need not forever be peeping at Nature through her key-holes, but can enter her open door and dwell amid the grandest scenes of the universe."
I hurried away from the forge earlier than usual one July day, and, finding the studio vacant, worked a full hour before Mr. Leopold presented himself. He came in hurriedly, glanced at my picture, pointing out a fault or two, then seated himself at his easel for an hour longer of silent work. At the expiration of this time he rose, put away his materials, and said, as he turned toward the door,—
"Miss Merton and Mr. Lang are to be married this afternoon, Sandy. They wished me to ask you down to the ceremony, which is to be private. An unexpected affair, hurried on account of business which calls Mr. Lang to town for a great part of the winter, and so would separate them much, if she could not go with him."
I was extremely surprised. However, Mr. Leopold was so collected that I felt called upon to refrain all expression of astonishment.
"You need not go home to make any alteration in your dress, Sandy," he added. "Come up to my room and help yourself to all the minor articles you need."
It was not long before I entered the drawing-room, where I found Miss Darry, evidently expecting me.
"Well, Sandy, this is a hurried affair. Your presence was particularly desired; and, by the way, Alice insisted upon dispatching a messenger to Annie Bray with an invitation to the ceremony, but her mother sends word that she is away on some excursion. Alice will be sorry, she has taken such a fancy to her: you must explain that she was really wanted."
"Oh, no,—Annie will be so disappointed! I can hunt her up and be back here before Miss Merton is prepared for the occasion"; and I started for the door, but the will stronger than my own recalled me.
"Sandy, pray reflect a moment, and you will attempt nothing of the kind. They leave in the eight o'clock train, and will be married some time about sunset. In the interval you could never go and return from Warren on any other horse than Mr. Lang's, and I suppose you would not expect your little friend to ride before you. Besides, we have been busy to-day planning other matters, and the final decorations have not been thought of. You are the very one to make the proper disposition of light and shade, flowers, etc."
"Miss Darry, do call in Mr. Leopold to gather flowers and pull the shades up or down, and let me try at least to find Annie," I answered, impatiently.
But she only replied,—
"Mr. Leopold! why, you innocent youth, he hasn't half your artistic capacity. I can see how you reverence him; but trust me, it is only from the innate modesty of your nature."
"He exhausted the fanciful region in which I dwell years ago, Miss Darry,and has gone up higher. You surely must see you undervalue his great nature."
"I see nothing just at present, Sandy, but the need of your assistance," she replied.
And by various devices she busied me until the arrival of the minister and the few intimate friends banished all further thought of Annie's regret at not being present. Miss Merton's loveliness and Mr. Lang's manly beauty made a picture I would gladly have studied longer than the time required to make them man and wife. I had long ago seen the ceremony performed by Mr. Purdo for a rustic couple; but this was a new and more fascinating phase of it. Impressed as I was apt to be by anything appealing to my emotions or sense of beauty, I did not care to join at once Miss Darry and Mr. Leopold, who engaged in their customary repartee directly after the bride retired to prepare for her journey; but Miss Darry, slipping away from Mr. Leopold, soon joined me on the lawn, to which I had stepped from the French window.
"What a serious expression, Sandy! One might imagine you had been making all these solemn promises yourself. You must learn not to be so easily affected by forms and symbols. It is a weakness of your poetic temperament. Their love has existed just as truly all these months as now; yet I never saw you grow serious over the contemplation of it, until a minister consecrated it by prayer and address."
I started.
"You do not give much of a niche to Cupid in your gallery of life, Miss Darry."
"Now that is poorer reasoning than I should have looked for even from you, Sandy. Because I laugh at your reverence for outward expression, do I necessarily depreciate the sentiment?"
"No," I answered, bluntly; "I was thinking how you bade me set aside Annie Bray,—how you always slight her claims upon me."
"Ah, it has a personal application, then," she replied, thoughtfully, but frankly as before. "It is only because I want you to make the most of your fine powers, that I would have you choose friends who can appreciate you."
"I know that you have been disinterested, noble," I returned, remorsefully. "But outward success would never atone to me for the lack of love. Perhaps it is through my very weakness that I cling so to the only human being who really loves me."
Miss Dairy's face changed color. For the first time in her intercourse with me, she was strongly and visibly moved.
"Sandy," she said, after a pause, in a low, broken voice, strangely at variance with its usual ringing tone, "without this love I, as a woman, have lived all my life, until a week ago; and then, because it was not the love I demanded, even though I could have taken it with inexpressible comfort into my lonely life, I rejected it. I tell you this merely as an encouragement. If Annie Bray is all you crave, forsake everything else for her; if not, deny yourself the gratification of being worshipped, and wait until you also can bestow your whole heart."
She stood there, in the waning light, plucking nervously the petals from the rose-bush, and scattering them on the grass,—her dark eye filled with a melancholy which I had never supposed could subdue its flashing light, or relax the outlines of the thinly cut lips,—unsatisfied,—her womanly nature rebelling against an unusually lonely lot. It needed just this humble acknowledgment of human need and human love to make Frank Darry irresistible, and my impressible fancy responded to the spell. Impelled by a passion which from its very force forbade analysis, I bent over her. Even then, as my hand fell upon her shoulder, and her eyes, still lulled in their dangerous trance of sadness, met mine inquiringly, my purpose was arrested by the voices of Nature around me, as if Annie Bray, herself allied to them, were reminding me of claims which had once held such power over me. I recall now the oriolewhose nest swung like a pendulum from the branch above, marking the passing of the summer day, and whose clear note struck more sweetly than the cuckoo clock the evening hour. I noticed a humming-bird nestled in its silver-lined apartment, its long bill looking as though even the honeyed sweetness of the flowers must be rendered more delicate before it could help to nourish the exuberant and palpitating life of its little body. Then I looked at the begonias and fuchsias in Miss Darry's hair, spilling their precious juices on the stem, as they hurried to reveal the glowing secret of their blossom; and while I yielded to the fascination of the scene, the woman beside me was absorbed into its wonderful witchery, Annie Bray and Frank Darry—timid, loving child and brilliantly developed woman—both united to win from me the passion of my life. Had I waited, the affinity of moods which drew us together would probably never have been reproduced; but I exclaimed,—
"Miss Darry, I can never entirely love any other woman than yourself!"
She started almost convulsively from the contact of my hand, and met my burning glance with one of such alarm and astonishment that I was stung almost to madness. Undoubtedly, my anger was partly a reaction from the period of dependence and tutelage, so galling to a proud and sensitive nature.
"You have no right," I cried, passionately, "to despise the love you have created. Listen; I do not expect any return. I know how theories are practically applied,—how one may work for the poor and ignorant on the broad table-land of perfect equality before God, and yet shrink from contact with the befriended brothers and sisters at the same social meal or in the same church. Shakspeare might have blackened Othello's skin by toil, instead of nature, and the obstacles to a happy love would have been in no degree lessened."
I paused; yet not a word did Miss Darry utter. Her face was so pale and rigid that all my suspicion was confirmed; and I exclaimed, more vehemently than before,—
"Remember, you cannot avoid the fact that I, a mere blacksmith, am your lover; if rejected and despised, your lover still. I shall think of you daily. You will not come to me alone the companion of my studio, one of those delicate visions which flit through an artist's brain. You shall stand beside my anvil. I will whisper your name when rough men are about me. You shall be the one gold thread embroidered into the coarse garment of my life,—my constant companion; yes, though you marry the first man in the land."
Still she stood immovable, as if carved in her favorite marble.
"Miss Darry," I implored, "I know how unworthy my character is of your love. Speak! If it is that you reject, I say no more; but what if your prophecies are fulfilled,—if I become what you desire?"
Then my statue glowed with life,—a deep color on the cheek, a frank, loving smile on the lips, banishing the doubtful, troubled expression I had watched so narrowly.
"You do not understand the woman you profess to love, Sandy," she replied, "if you suppose her capable of staking her favor on your future distinction. Not as blacksmith or artist, but as the man I love, I think of you to-night," she added, in a lower tone, returning to my side.
My happiness for the next few moments was complete. I held her closer in that fading light, and studied with delight the sweet, half-yielding, half-reproving expression with which she met my protestations of gratitude and devotion, and which I fondly fancied my love had stamped upon her face forever. Then I heard a quick step in the shrubbery, as of some one sent to summon us, and reluctantly released from my hold the embodiment at that instant of all I esteemed noblest and loveliest in woman. With characteristic composure, Miss Darry answered the message by gathering some of theroses beside us, and turning to reënter the house. Afraid of my own lack of self-control, I would gladly have gone home like a blushing girl; but my new pride of protecting Miss Darry under all circumstances of difficulty compelled me to follow her. She was, however, on returning to the house, the same bright, helpful person as before. The scene on the lawn became, in half an hour, as the baseless fabric of a dream; and thinking that Miss Darry's sentiment, like that of the Colosseum, was best revealed by moonlight, I trusted in the few parting words which I should seek occasion to speak to her on the steps, as likely to restore her most captivating mood. When we parted, however, she only said, with heightened color, to be sure,—
"Sandy, I am well aware, that, were you the 'mere blacksmith' you called yourself in momentary passion to-night, bounded by narrow aims and desires, I could never love you. We must not, therefore, allow our affection to delay the destiny which, if you are faithful, most surely awaits you."
The fervent nonsense which might naturally have disgusted or at least wearied her she endured at first, as a necessary drawback; but it was soon toned down by the consciousness that she was guiding me, as usual, in paths best, if not always most agreeable to myself. She made no stipulations of secrecy with regard to our engagement. Her frank nature apparently admitted of no dim recesses to which only one must have the key.
After a few days, therefore, I resolved to disclose my new relations to the Brays, though I felt a most unaccountable reluctance to so doing. Mr. Bray received the information with indifference; Mrs. Bray looked surprised, and said she always knew Amos was respected, still she shouldn't have felt certain that the "school-ma'am" (in which capacity Miss Darry was spoken of in the village) would like to marry his apprentice; and Annie stole from her seat at the breakfast-table, and, laying her little hand on my shoulder, with a troubled look in her large blue eyes, asked,—
"Do you really mean it, Sandy,—that you have promised to marry the proud, handsome woman at Hillside?"
"Certainly, my little Annie," I replied; "I have promised to love and care for her, and I suppose we shall be married by-and-by. Miss Darry is not proud; it is only because you are too young to understand her that you think so."
"But I understand Mrs. Lang, and I thought I understood you, Sandy. Are you sure she will help you to grow happier and better?"
The tears were in her eyes. What induced these two—my betrothed wife and little sister—to have such doubts of each other?
"Of course I am sure of her, Annie. She has helped me to grow more of a man ever since I have known her; and as to being happier, two persons loving each other must, of course, be happy together. Besides," I added, smothering a sudden doubt, and assuming the philosopher, "we were not placed in this world to be happy, Annie,—only to make of ourselves all we can in every way."
"And to make others happy, Sandy," she added, in a wistful, tremulous way, as though her heart were full.
"Yes, certainly; and when I have a wife and home, I will make my little Annie so. She shall live with me, and confess that my wife is not proud, but noble and kind."
"No, Sandy, I shall not leave my mother, father, and brother Tom, to live with any one. I shall work with them and for them," she returned, with a womanly dignity I had never before noticed in her.
"You do not love me, then, Annie?" I asked, selfishly grasping at the affection I had so lightly prized.
"Yes, Sandy, as you love me; but not as we either of us care for our own,—you for Miss Darry, I for my mother, father, and Tom."
This final, clear settlement of my claims was all that was granted, thoughI lingered while she busied herself with her morning work, in the hope of more hearty sympathy. I carried about with me all day a restless, unsatisfied state of mind, quite strange in a newly accepted lover, and scarcely to be exorcised by Miss Darry's bright cordiality in the evening.
Mrs. Lang returned from her wedding-journey happy and beautiful, charmed by all she had seen, and Mr. Lang was unusually demonstrative to every one in the excess of his joy; but I had reason to suppose that the announcement of our engagement reduced his exuberance considerably. Miss Darry did not, however, admit the least disappointment in their manner of receiving it; her own judgment was an estimate, from which, for herself, there was no appeal. She was the most entirely self-sustained woman I have ever met. Having decided that I was a genius, and that she loved me, the opinion of others was of no moment in her eyes. Mr. Lang merely offered his congratulations to me by saying,—
"Well, Sandy, my dear fellow, you are to obtain, it seems, what many a man of wealth and position will envy you. You must pardon me for saying that Miss Darry's choice is quite astonishing to her friends. If you possess the genius of Raphael, I shall still regard you as two very peculiar persons to come together; but I am in no mood to cavil at love."
Mrs. Lang said, kindly,—
"We must see more of you than ever, Mr. Allen, if you are finally to deprive us of Miss Darry. She has lived with me ever since the death of her parents, who were old friends of my mother, and we shall miss her very much. She is a splendid woman. You are sure you understand her?" she added, naively; "I freely confess I don't."
My pride swelled at all this. Frank Darry's love was the most blissful proof yet afforded of the personal power of the man who had captivated her, and more vehemently than was perhaps natural under the circumstances, I professed to comprehend, love, nay, worship Miss Darry.
The efforts for my culture were now redoubled. In order to demonstrate the wisdom of Miss Darry's choice, I must give palpable proof of superiority. I had earned enough for present support, and my forge must be given up. I must cut off all my old connections, go to the city, visit studios, draw from casts, attend galleries of paintings, have access to public libraries, make literary and artistic acquaintances, pursue my classical studies, and display the powers which Miss Darry, by her own force of will, projected into me. Such were the business-like plans which usurped the place of those mutual adulatory confidences presumed to occupy the first elysian hours of an engagement. Miss Darry's love was not of that caressing, tendril description, so common with her sex, which plays in tender demonstrativeness around the one beloved; it helped constantly to keep the highest standard before him, and to sustain rather than depend.
About a week after Mr. and Mrs. Lang's return, Mr. Leopold, who had accompanied them, came back; and Miss Darry intimated that it would be well for me to inform him of our engagement. I said to him, therefore, rather abruptly one afternoon, as I was about leaving to seek Miss Darry, (who was never quite ready to see me, if my painting-hours were abridged,)—
"Mr. Leopold, I have sold my forge to-day. I wanted to ask your advice about the course to be pursued in town; but I am under orders now of the most binding kind, I am engaged to Miss Darry."
Mr. Leopold was busy at his easel, his profile toward me. I was certainly not mistaken; the blood rushed over his face, subsided, leaving it very pale, and he made a quick, nervous movement which overthrew his palette. He rose quietly and replaced it, however, saying, in his usual tone,—
"Very well, Sandy. I am ready to help you in any way I can."
"But you do not—no one congratulates me," I said, deceived by his calmness, and supposing the momentary suspicion that his was the love rejected by Miss Darry must have been a mistaken one.
"If they do not, it is not because of any lack appreciation for either of you," he answered slowly, "but that they fail to see the point of union. I admire the pine; it is straight, strong, self-reliant, and yet wind-haunted by many tender and melancholy sentiments; I like the peach-tree, too, with its pink tufts of fanciful blooming in the spring-time: but if these two should grow side by side, I am not sure but I should wonder a little."
His smile, as he looked me full in the eye, had genuine good-will mingled with its humor; and it softened the indignation I felt at the implied comparison.
"You make me out the weaker vessel of the two, then?" I asked, resentfully.
"No, Sandy, I don't say that; possibly, as whatever power we have runs parallel with Providential forces or against them, it makes mortal strength or weakness. But may you become a truly noble man, if you are to be Miss Darry's husband!" he answered, rising and extending his hand.
I believe he was one to scorn a lack of self-control in himself; but I do not think he cared either to reveal or to hide the love which I read at that moment. I grasped his hand as cordially as it was given, and hurried down stairs, out of the door, and over the hill, with a strong conviction that Miss Darry was a mistaken and foolish woman, and a prompting to disinterestedness not quite compatible with my relations to her. I was in no mood for her society, so I resolved to delay seeing her until evening, and conclude my arrangements at the forge, as I was to go to the city the next week.
Approaching the village, I overtook Miss Dinsmore; and though my new pretensions had not increased my popularity among the villagers, I had reason to consider her my firm friend and advocate; so I was quite willing to escape my unpleasant train of thought in listening to her.
"Well, Sandy, nobody gets a sight of you nowadays down this way. I never was so set up as when I heard tell you was goin' to marry the schoolmarm. Why, I was always certain sure you'd take to Annie Bray. Such a sweet little lamb as she is; not a bit high-strung 'cause she's made much of at the great house on the hill, though she does sing like a bird in an apple-tree every Sunday, when Louisy Purdo doesn't drown her voice with screechin'; but she's grown more sober an' quiet-like than ever. Miss Bray says she helps a powerful deal about house, and Amos don't swear so much now he sees it hurts her."
"She's a dear little thing," I interrupted, impatiently; "but, Miss Dinsmore, do you know Mr. Bray may have all the blacksmith-work to himself now? for I'm going to town for the rest of the summer and autumn."
"You don't say so, Sandy! Well, old Dr. Allen wasn't one of us, as I tell 'em, and there's no sort of reason why you should be; and your mother was a real born lady, though she was so gentle-spoken 't wasn't half the women could tell the difference between her and them."
"But, Miss Dinsmore," I said, "I don't expect to forget my old friends, because I hope to do better somewhere else than here. I shall often come down to Warren."
"Oh, yes, you'll come down, I don't mistrust that," she replied, slowly nodding her green calash, "as long as the schoolmarm is at the Hill; but Annie will look paler than ever. She thinks a sight of you, poor thing, and it will never be the same to her. She loves you like—a sister," added Miss Dinsmore, the tears in her faded blue eyes, and her sense of womanly modesty supplying the familiar title.
We were very near the Variety Store. If I could for a moment drift away from this annoying theme!
"How did you like Mr. Leopold, that afternoon I introduced him to you, Miss Dinsmore?" I asked, in desperation.
"Oh! ah! Well, Sandy, to speak plain, I've seen him a matter of three or four times, may-be, since. He set down, quite friendly-like, to a bit of supper, last time he come. I suppose he feels lonely; he seems pleasant-spoken, and is liked by everybody round here; poor man, he oughtn't to be without a mate. He's taken a great likin' to Annie Bray; but then, of course, he's got some sense of what's becomin'; she's years too young for him."
"Too young! I should think so," indignantly; "he's old enough to be her grandfather."
"No, Sandy,—no, I think not," said Miss Dinsmore, pausing thoughtfully at her door-step. "Old Mr. Bray would have been nigh upon eighty come next harvest; but then Annie has nobody to look out for her now you know, exceptin' Amos, who a'n't over wide-awake, between you and me, though an honester man never lived."
I was very willing to part with Miss Dinsmore.
"Another afternoon experience like this will make a hermit of me," I muttered, impatiently, as I strode away in the same direction from which I had come.
Miss Darry, Mr. Leopold, anybody, was better than Annie Bray, with her sweet, pale face, in my present mood.
"Annie has nobody to look out for her now, you know": many a day I remembered with a pang that this was too true.