"Pray let me have it now," said I; "it shall be woven into the ballad."

"She is neither more nor less," answered Zenobia, "than a seamstress

from the city; and she has probably no more transcendental purpose than

to do my miscellaneous sewing, for I suppose she will hardly expect to

make my dresses."

"How can you decide upon her so easily?" I inquired.

"Oh, we women judge one another by tokens that escape the obtuseness of

masculine perceptions!" said Zenobia. "There is no proof which you

would be likely to appreciate, except the needle marks on the tip of

her forefinger. Then, my supposition perfectly accounts for her

paleness, her nervousness, and her wretched fragility. Poor thing! She

has been stifled with the heat of a salamander stove, in a small, close

room, and has drunk coffee, and fed upon doughnuts, raisins, candy, and

all such trash, till she is scarcely half alive; and so, as she has

hardly any physique, a poet like Mr. Miles Coverdale may be allowed to

think her spiritual."

"Look at her now!" whispered I.

Priscilla was gazing towards us with an inexpressible sorrow in her wan

face and great tears running down her cheeks. It was difficult to

resist the impression that, cautiously as we had lowered our voices,

she must have overheard and been wounded by Zenobia's scornful estimate

of her character and purposes.

"What ears the girl must have!" whispered Zenobia, with a look of

vexation, partly comic and partly real. "I will confess to you that I

cannot quite make her out. However, I am positively not an ill-natured

person, unless when very grievously provoked,--and as you, and

especially Mr. Hollingsworth, take so much interest in this odd

creature, and as she knocks with a very slight tap against my own heart

likewise,--why, I mean to let her in. From this moment I will be

reasonably kind to her. There is no pleasure in tormenting a person of

one's own sex, even if she do favor one with a little more love than

one can conveniently dispose of; and that, let me say, Mr. Coverdale,

is the most troublesome offence you can offer to a woman."

"Thank you," said I, smiling; "I don't mean to be guilty of it."

She went towards Priscilla, took her hand, and passed her own rosy

finger-tips, with a pretty, caressing movement, over the girl's hair.

The touch had a magical effect. So vivid a look of joy flushed up

beneath those fingers, that it seemed as if the sad and wan Priscilla

had been snatched away, and another kind of creature substituted in her

place. This one caress, bestowed voluntarily by Zenobia, was evidently

received as a pledge of all that the stranger sought from her, whatever

the unuttered boon might be. From that instant, too, she melted in

quietly amongst us, and was no longer a foreign element. Though always

an object of peculiar interest, a riddle, and a theme of frequent

discussion, her tenure at Blithedale was thenceforth fixed. We no more

thought of questioning it, than if Priscilla had been recognized as a

domestic sprite, who had haunted the rustic fireside of old, before we

had ever been warmed by its blaze.




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