"
"Misc Somers says, Jedge, you hold the women longer than thar babies;
but I told her you was in sech conviction you didn't know one from the
other. 'Oh,' she says, 'he's sly and safe when he gits over yer on the
Worcester side.' Misc Somers, she's dreadful plain."
William Tilghman, during the continuation of this colloquy, looked with
interest on the two young ladies: Vesta, the elder by two or three
years, and richly endowed with the lights of both beauty and
accomplishments; the maid from the ocean side, plainer, and with no
ornament within or without; but he could foresee, under Vesta's
fostering, a graceful woman, with coquetry and fascination not wholly
latent there; and, as his eyes met Rhoda's, he interpreted the look that
at a certain time of life almost every maiden casts on meeting a young
man--"Is he single?" She shot this look so archly, yet so strong, that
the arrow wounded him a very little as it glanced off. He smiled, but
the consciousness was restored a moment that he was a young man still,
as well as a priest. Love, which had closed a door like the portal of a
tomb against him, began to come forth like a glow-worm and wink its lamp
athwart the dark.
"She must come to Sunday-school," he thought, "if she stays in Princess
Anne. We will polish her."
The mocking-bird, not being satisfied with any lull in the conversation,
"pearted up," as he saw Vesta withdraw, and cried,
"'Sband! 'Sband! Meee--shack! Mee-ee-ee-shack! See me! see me! Gents!
gents! gents! genten! Sweet! sweetie! sweetie! Hoo! hoo! See! see!
Vesty, she! Ha! ha!"
He flew in the air over his stirring master, as if doubting that all was
well since the strange lady, who had been so quiet all the morning, was
gone.
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