wits and looked about me again. I had only time to notice that the young gentleman and lady looked very much relieved, and to shake my shawl from the clutch of the woman beside me, when we stopped at Salem, safe and sound.
I had a good deal of trouble to find Miss Talbot's house, but find it I did; and the first thing she gave me was a scolding for coming, thinking I was Lurindy, and her tongue wasn't much cooler when she found I wasn't; and then finally she said, as long as I was there, I might stay; and I went right up to see John, and a sight he was!
It was about three months I stayed and took the greater part of the care of him. Sometimes in the midnight, when he was quite beside himself, and dreaming out loud, it was about as good as a story-book to hear him. He told me of some great Indian cities where there were men in white, with skins swarthier than old red Guinea gold, and with great shawls all wrought in palm-leaves of gold and crimson bound on their heads, who could sink a ship with their lacs of rupees; and of islands where the shores came down to the water's edge and unrolled like a green ribbon, and brooks came sparkling down behind them, and great trees hung above like banners, and beautiful women came off on rafts and skiffs loaded with fruit,—the islands set like jewels on the back of the sea, and the sky covered them with light and hung above them bluer than the hangings of the Tabernacle, and they sent long rivers of spice out on the air to entice the sailor back,—islands where night never came. Sometimes, when he talked on so, I remembered that I'd felt rather touched up when I found that Lurindy'd had a sweetheart all this time, and mother knew it, and they'd never told me, and I wondered how it happened. Now it came across me, that, quite a number of years before, Lurindy had gone to Salem and worked in the mills. She didn't stay long, because it didn't agree with her,—the neighbors said, because she was lazy. Lurindy lazy, indeed! There a'n't one of us knows how to spell the first syllable of that word. But that's where she must have got acquainted with John Talbot. He'd been up at our place, too; but I was over to Aunt Emeline's, it seems. But one night, about this time, I thought he was dying, he'd got so very low; and I thought how dreadful it was for Lurindy never to see him again, and how it was all my selfish fault, and how maybe he wouldn't 'a' died, if he'd had her to have taken care of him; and I suppose no convicted felon ever endured more remorse than I did, sitting and watching that dying man all that long and lonely night. But with the morning he was better,—they always are a great deal worse when they are getting well from it; he laughed when the doctor came, and said he guessed he'd weathered that gale; and by-and-by he got well.
He meant to have gone up and seen Lurindy, after all, but his ship was ready for sea just as he was; and I thought it was about as well, for he wasn't looking his prettiest. And so he declared I was the neatest little trimmer that ever trod water, and he believed he should know a Ruggles by the cut of her jib, (I wonder if he'd have known Aunt Mimy,) and if ever he went master, he'd name his ship for me, and call it the Sister of Charity. And he kissed me on both cheeks, and looked serious enough when he sent his love to Lurindy, and went away; and no sooner was he gone than Miss Talbot said I'd better have the doctor myself; and I didn't sit up again for about three weeks.
All this time I hadn't heard a word from home, and, for all I knew, Stephen might be dead and buried. I didn't feel so very light-hearted, you may be sure, when one day Miss Talbot brought me a letter. It was from mother, and it seemed Stephen'd only had a bad fever, and had been up and gone home for more than a week. So I wrote back, as soon as I could, all about John, and how he'd gone to sea again, and how Miss Talbot, who set sights by John, was rather lonely, and I thought I'd keep her company a little longer, and try a spell in the mills, seeing that our neighbors didn't think a girl had been properly accomplished till she'd had a term or two in the factory. The fact was, I didn't want to go home just then; I thought, maybe, if I waited a bit, my face would get back to looking as it used to. So I worked in the piece-room, light work and good pay, sent mother and Lurindy part of my wages, and paid my board to Miss Talbot. She'd become quite attached to me, and I to her, for all she was such an old-maidish thing; but I'd got to thinking an old maid wasn't such a very bad thing, after all. Fourth of July came at last, and the mills were closed, and I went with some of the other girls on an excursion down the harbor; and when I got home, Miss Talbot told me my Cousin Stephen had been down to see me, and had been obliged to go home in the last train. I wondered why Stephen didn't stay, and then it flashed upon me that she'd told him all about it, and he didn't want to see me afterwards. I knew mother and Lurindy suspected why I didn't come home, and now, thinks I, they know; but I asked no questions.
When September came, I saw it wasn't any use delaying, and I might as well go back to knitting sale-socks then as any time. However, I didn't go till October. You needn't think I'd stayed away from the farm all that time, while the tender things were opening, the tiny top-heavy beans pushing up, the garden-sarse greening, the little grass-blades two and two,—while all the young creatures were coming forward, the chickens breaking the shell, and the gosling-storm brewing and dealing destruction,—while the strawberries were growing ripe and red up in the high field, and the hay and clover were getting in,—you needn't think I'd stayed away from all that had been pleasant in my life, without many a good heart-ache; and when at last I saw the dear old gray house again, all weather-beaten and homely, standing there with its well-sweep among the elms, I fairly cried. Mother and Lurindy ran out to meet me, when they saw the stage stop, and after we got into the house it seemed if they would never get done kissing me. And mother stirred round and made hot cream-biscuits for tea, and got the best china, and we sat up till nigh midnight, talking, and I had to tell everything John did and said and thought and looked, over and over again.
By-and-by I unpacked my trunk, and there was a little parcel in the bottom of it, and I pulled it up.
"There, Lurindy," says I, "John told me to tell you to have your wedding-dress ready against he came home,—he's gone mate,—and here it is." And I unrolled the neatest brown silk you ever saw, just fit for Lurindy, she's so pale and genteel, and threw it into her lap. I'd stayed the other month to get enough to buy it.
The first thing Lurindy did, by way of thanks, was to burst into tears and declare she never could take it, that she never should marry now; and the more I urged her, the more she cried. But at last she said she'd accept it conditionally,—and the condition was, I should be married when she was.
"Well," says I, "agreed, if you'll provide the necessary article; because I can't very well marry my shadow, and I don't know any one else that would be fool enough to have such a little fright."
At that Lurindy felt all the worse, and it took all the spirits I had to build up hers and mother's. I suppose I was sorry to see they felt so bad, (and they hadn't meant that I should,) because it gave the finishing stroke to my conviction; and after I was in bed, I grew sorrier still; and if I cried, 't wasn't on account of myself, but I saw how Lurindy 'd always feel self-accused, though she hadn't ought to, whenever she looked at me, and how all her life she'd feel my scarred face like a weight on her happiness, and think I owed it to John, and how intolerable such an obligation, though it was only a fancied one, would be; and I saw, too, that it all came from my not going up-stairs that first time when Stephen knocked,—because if I had gone, I should have been there when the doctor came, and Lurindy 'd have gone to have taken care of John herself, and it would have been her face that was ruined instead of mine; and though it was a great deal better that it should be mine, still she'd have been easier in her mind;—and so thinking and worrying, I fell asleep.
Next day was baking-day, and Stephen was coming in the afternoon, and it was almost five o'clock when we got cleared up, and I went up-stairs to change my dress. I thought 't wasn't any use to trim myself out in bows and ruffles now, so I just put on my brown gingham and a white linen collar; but Lurindy came and tied a pink ribbon at my throat, and fixed my hair herself, and looked down and said,—
"Well, I don't see but you're about as pretty as ever you was."
That almost finished me; but I contrived to laugh, and got down-stairs. Mother 'd run over to the village to get some yarn to knit up, for she 'd used all our own wool. It was getting dark, and I had just brought in another log, and
