She had been a pretty little thing when young, and
Jessie remembered her as pretty in her early old age.
At heart she must still have been young when her hair
was grey, for she made a friend and companion of the
child, and they fed upon her romances together.
When the aunt died, the child, who had known no mother
but her, was stricken with a grief so deep and wild
that at first her life and then her mind was feared
for. To get her away from the associations and
influences of the place, her father sent her to school
in the western part of the State, where she met Madeline
Swan, and formed one of those friendships which are
like passions between young girls. During her
long absence, her father married again; and she was
called home to his deathbed. He was dead when
she arrived; he had left a will that made her dependent
on her stepmother. When Madeline Swan wrote to
announce that she was coming to Boston to study art,
Jessie Carver had no trouble in arranging with her
stepmother, by the sacrifice of her final claim on
her father’s estate, to join her friend there,
with a little sum of money on which she was to live
till she should begin to earn something.
Her life had been a series of romantic episodes; Madeline
said that if it could be written out it would be fascinating;
but she went to work very practically, and worked
hard. She had not much feeling for colour; but
she drew better than her friend, and what she hoped
to do was to learn to illustrate books.
One evening, after a day of bitter-sweet reveries
of Jessie, Lemuel went to see Statira. She and
’Manda Grier were both very gay, and made him
very welcome. They had tea for him; Statira tried
all her little arts, and ’Manda Grier told some
things that had happened in the box-factory.
He could not help laughing at them; they were really
very funny; but he felt somehow that it was all a preparation
for something else. At last the two girls made
a set at him, as ’Manda Grier called it, and
tried to talk him into their old scheme of going to
wait on table at some of the country hotels, or the
seaside. They urged that now, while he was out
of a place, it was just the time to look up a chance.
He refused, at first kindly, and at last angrily;
and he would have gone away in this mood if Statira
had not said that she would never say another word
to him about it, and hung upon his neck, while ’Manda
Grier looked on in sullen resentment. He came
away sick and heavy at heart. He said to himself
that they would be willing to drag him into the mire;
they had no pride; they had no sense; they did not
know anything and they could not learn. He tried
to get away from them to Miss Carver in his thoughts;
but the place where he had left her was vacant, and
he could not conjure her back. Out of the void,
he was haunted by a look of grieving reproach and wonder
from her eyes.
XXV.
Copyrights
The Minister's Charge from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
