“Seventeen last May-Day; but the minister does not like to hear me calling it May-Day,” said she, checking herself with a little awe. “Phillis was seventeen on the first day of May last,” she repeated in an emended edition.
“And I am nineteen in another month,” thought I to myself; I don’t know why.
Then Phillis came in, carrying a tray with wine and cake upon it.
“We keep a house-servant,” said Cousin Holman, “but it is churning day, and she is busy.” It was meant as a little proud apology for her daughter’s being the handmaiden.
“I like doing it, mother,” said Phillis, in her grave, full voice.
I felt as if I were somebody in the Old Testament—who, I could not recollect—being served and waited upon by the daughter of the host. Was I like Abraham’s steward, when Rebekah gave him to drink at the well? I thought Isaac had not gone the pleasantest way to work in winning him a wife. But Phillis never thought about such things. She was a stately, gracious young woman, in the dress and with the simplicity of a child.
As I had been taught, I drank to the health of my new-found cousin and her husband; and then I ventured to name my Cousin Phillis with a little bow of my head towards her; but I was too awkward to look and see how she took my compliment. “I must go now,” said I, rising.
The Dawn of Love
From Cousin Phillis, 1865