I was boarding at that time with a poor widow-woman, and one night I
asked her about Rachel. She warmed up immediately, said Rachel Lowe was
a good girl and ought to be "sot by," and not slighted on her parents'
account.

"And who were her parents?" I asked.

"Why, when her father was a poor boy, the Squire thought he would take
him and bring him up to learnin'; but when he came to be a man grown
almost, he ran away to sea; and long afterwards we heard of his marryin'
some outlandish girl, half English, half French,--but Rachel's no worse
for that. After his wife died,--and, as far as I can find out, the way
he carried on was what killed her,--he started to bring Rachel here; but
he died on the passage, and she came with only a letter. I suppose he
thought the ones that had been kind to him would be kind to her; but,
you see, the Squire is a-livin' with his second wife, and she isn't the
woman the first Miss Brewster was. In time folks will come round, but
now they sort of look down upon her; for, you see, everybody knows who
her father was, and how he didn't do any credit to his bringin' up, and
nobody knows who her mother was, only that she was a furrener, which was
so much agin her. But you are goin' right from here to the Squire's; and
mebby, if you make of her, and let folks see that you set store by her,
they'll begin to open their eyes."

I thought I felt just like kissing the poor widow; anyway, I knew I felt
like kissing somebody. To be sure, the talk was all about Rachel, and it
might--But no matter; what difference does it make now who it was I
wanted to kiss forty or fifty years ago?

The next day I went to board at the Squire's. It was dark when I reached