The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 40, February, 1861 by Various
page 41 of 282 (14%)
page 41 of 282 (14%)
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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,-- |
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