As yet I had only seen Nellie in the distance, and was
about despairing of making her acquaintance, when accident
threw her in my way. Directly opposite our house,
and just accross a long green meadow, was a piece of

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

woods which belonged to Mr. Gilbert, and there, one afternoon
early in May, I saw Nellie. I had seen her there
before, but never dared approach her; and now I divided
my time between watching her and a dense black cloud
which had appeared in the west, and was fast approaching
the zenith. I was just thinking how nice it would be
if the rain should drive her to our house for shelter, when
patter, patter came the large drops in my face; thicker
and faster they fell, until it seemed like a perfect deluge;
and through the almost blinding sheet of rain I descried
Nellie coming toward me at a furious rate. With the
agility of a fawn she bounded over the gate, and with the
exclamation of, “Ain't I wetter than a drownded rat?”
we were perfectly well acquainted.

It took but a short time to divest her of her dripping
garments, and array her in some of mine, which Sally said
“fitted her to a T,” though I fancied she looked sadly out
of place in my linen pantalets and long-sleeved dress. She
was a great lover of fun and frolic, and in less than half
an hour had “ridden to Boston” on Joe's rocking-horse,
turned the little wheel faster than even I dared to turn
it, tried on grandma's stays, and then, as a crowning feat,
tried the rather dangerous experiment of riding down the
garret stairs on a board! The clatter brought up grandma,
and I felt some doubts about her relishing a kind of
play which savored so much of what she called “a racket,”
but the soft brown eyes which looked at her so pleadingly,
were too full of love, gentleness, and mischief to be resisted,
and permission for “one more ride” was given,
“provided she'd promise not to break her neck.”

Oh, what fun we had that afternoon! What a big rent
she tore in my gingham frock, and what a “dear, delightful
old haunted castle of a thing” she pronounced our
house to be. Darling, darling Nellie! I shut my eyes,

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

and she comes before me again, the same bright, beautiful
creature she was when I saw her first, as she was when
I saw her for the last, last time.

It rained until dark, and Nellie, who confidently expected
to stay all night, had whispered to me her intention
of “tying our toes together,” when there came a
tremendous rap upon the door, and, without waiting to
be bidden, in walked Mr. Gilbert, puffing and swelling,
and making himself perfectly at home, in a kind of offhand
manner, which had in it so much of condescension
that I was disgusted, and, when sure Nellie would not
see me, I made at him a wry face, thereby feeling greatly
relieved!

After managing to let mother know how expensive his
family was, how much he paid yearly for wines and cigars,
and how much Adaline's education and piano had cost,
he arose to go, saying to his daughter, “Come, Puss,
take off those, — ahem! — those habiliments, and let's be
off!”

Nellie obeyed, and just before she was ready to start,
she asked, “When I would come and spend the day with
her?”

I looked at mother, mother looked at Mr. Gilbert, Mr.
Gilbert looked at me, and after surveying me from head
to foot, said, spitting between every other word, “Ye-es,
ye-es, we've come to live in the country, and I suppose,
(here he spit three successive times,) and I suppose we
may as well be on friendly terms as any other; so madam,
(turning to mother,) I am willing to have your little
daughter visit us occasionally.” Then adding that “he
would extend the same invitation to her, were it not that
his wife was an invalid and saw no company,” he departed.

One morning, several days afterward, a servant brought

[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]

to our house a neat little note from Mrs. Gilbert, asking
mother to let me spend the day with Nellie. After some
consultation between mother and grandma, it was decided
that I might go, and in less than an hour I was
dressed and on the road, my hair braided so tightly in
my neck that the little red bumps of flesh set up here
and there, like currants on a brown earthen platter.

Nellie did not wait to receive me formally, but came
running down the road, telling me that Robin had made
a swing in the barn, and that we would play there most
all day, as her mother was sick, and Adaline, who occupied
two-thirds of the house, would n't let us come near
her. This Adaline was to me a very formidable personage.
Hitherto I had only caught glimpses of her, as with
long skirts and waving plumes she sometimes dashed past
our house on horseback, and it was with great trepidation
that I now followed Nellie into the parlor, where she
told me her sister was.

“Adaline, this is my little friend,” said she; and Adaline
replied, “How do you do, little friend?”

My cheeks tingled, and for the first time, raising my
eyes, I found myself face to face with the haughty belle.
She was very tall and queen-like in her figure, and though
she could hardly be called handsome, there was about her
an air of elegance and refinement which partially compensated
for the absence of beauty. That she was proud,
one could see from the glance of her large black eyes and
the curl of her lip. Coolly surveying me for a moment,
as she would any other curious specimen, she resumed
her book, never speaking to me again, except to ask,
when she saw me gazing wonderingly around the splendidly
furnished room, “if I supposed I could remember
every article of furniture, and give a faithful report.”

I thought I was insulted when she called me “little

[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]

friend,” and now, feeling sure of it, I tartly replied, that
“if I couldn't, she, perhaps, might lend me paper and
pencil, with which to write them down.”

“Original, truly,” said she, again poring over her book.

Nellie, who had left me for a moment, now returned,
bidding me come and see her mother, and passing through
the long hall, I was soon in Mrs. Gilbert's room, which
was as tastefully, though perhaps not quite so richly, furnished
as the parlor. Mrs. Gilbert was lying upon a sofa,
and the moment I looked upon her, the love which I had
so freely given the daughter, was shared with the mother,
in whose pale, sweet face, and soft, brown eyes, I saw
a strong resemblance to Nellie. She was attired in a
rose-colored morning-gown, which flowed open in front,
disclosing to view a larger quantity of rich French embroidery
than I had ever before seen.

Many times during the day, and many times since,
have I wondered what made her marry, and if she really
loved, the bearish looking man who occasionally stalked
into the room, smoking cigars and talking very loudly,
when he knew how her head was throbbing with pain.

I had eaten but little breakfast that morning, and verily
I thought I should famish before their dinner hour arrived;
and when at last it came, and I saw the table glittering
with silver, I felt many misgivings as to my ability
to acquit myself creditably. But by dint of watching
Nellie, doing just what she did, and refusing just what
she refused, I managed to get through with it tolerably
well. For once, too, in my life, I drank all the wine I
wanted; the result of which was, that long before sunset
I went home, crying and vomiting with the sick headache,
which Sally said “served me right;” at the same
time hinting her belief that I was slightly intoxicated!

p598-171

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