"
She drew herself up quickly, as if she had been thinking aloud, and
added,
"Your grandfather's farm adjoined ours, and your father and I were
playmates, and great friends. We were seldom separated till later,
when I was a strong, rosy-cheeked girl of sixteen and he a strapping
young lad, with a hankering for the sea. Well, we went our ways--he to
sail as cabin-boy in a merchantman, I to journey up to Boston and seek
service with some nice family."
"Service!" murmured Hope, involuntarily.
"It sounds queer, doesn't it? Yes, that was what I expected to do, and
I was proud to be able to help at home, for the little farm was not
productive, and the 'lien' on it was heavy. But I did not 'work out,'
after all--in that way--my sister, who was now married and living in
Lynn, found a place for me in the factory there. Like Hannah, I often
was seen sitting at the window binding shoes."
"Oh! In Lynn. No wonder you were so interested when we talked about
it."
"You noticed, did you, Brighteyes? Well, there I worked for two years,
and there I--married."
She stopped as if done with the subject, and the girls, half-forgetful
of their peril, looked at her in blank disappointment. It is a long
step from a dingy shoe-factory in a New England town to a lordly
country-seat in Old England, and both had fondly hoped to have it
bridged while this communicative mood was on. But the lips had closed
sternly, and Lady Moreham, seemingly quite forgetful of her young
auditors, was gazing far away.
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