"
"Well, Miss Lucy, I can't help it. To think it is really you setting
there by my fire! I do feel like a cat with one kitten. You should
check me glaring you out o' countenance like that."
"Check you? I could not bear to lose one glance of that honest tender
eye. I would not exchange one for all the flatteries of the world. I
am so happy here, so tranquil, under my nurse's wing."
With this declaration came a little sigh.
Mrs. Wilson caught it. "Is there nothing wanting, dear?"
"No."
"Well, I do keep wishing for one thing."
"What is that?"
"Oh, I can't help my thoughts."
"But you can help keeping them from me, nurse."
"Well, my dear, I am like a mother; I watch every word of yours and
every look; and it is my belief you deceive yourself a bit: many a
young maid has done that. I do judge there is a young man that is more
to you than you think for."
"Who on earth is that, nurse? " asked Lucy, coloring.
"The handsome young gentleman."
"Oh, they are all handsome--all my pests."
"The one I found under your window, Miss Lucy; he wasn't in liquor; so
what was he there for? and you know you were not at your ease till you
had made me go and wake him, and send him home; and you were all of a
tremble. I'm a widdy now, and can speak my mind to men-folk all one as
women-folk; but I've been a maid, and I can mind how I was in those
days. Liking did use to whisper me to do so and so; Shyness up and
said, 'La! not for all the world; what'll he think?'"
"Oh, nurse, do you believe me capable of loving one who does not love
me?"
"No.
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