“Oh nothin’,” sez I, “if you don’t think it needs softenin’ up and illuminatin’.”
Well, I went up to my room and in a few minutes Faith come in, and she went right by me and looked in the glass. She wuz pale and seemed to be kinder tremblin’. She studied her face intently in the lookin’ glass, then sez 151 she, “What is there in my face, what have I done?” sez she, “How have I looked, that that awful man dare insult me? Oh, I must have looked weak or acted weak, or he wouldn’t have dared to!” and she busted out cryin’.
And I sez soothin’ly, “It hain’t the worst thing that could happen to you. A offer of marriage hain’t like a attack of yeller fever, or cholera, or even the janders, nor,” sez I, “it hain’t like losin’ friends, or a plague of grasshoppers, or––”
And I spoze there hain’t no tellin’ onto what hites of eloquence I might have riz to cheer her up. But all of a sudden she bust out a-laughin’ with the tears standin’ in her big eyes and runnin’ down her cheeks.
“There,” sez I, “you see I’m right, don’t you?”
“Oh you dear, delicious Samantha!” sez she, and she throwed her arms round me and kissed me. I kissed her back and then I went on brushin’ my hair for the night. I hadn’t nothin’ on but my skirts and dressin’ sack, but I didn’t mind her. And she went and sot down by the winder and looked off into the west. Fur off the blue hazy distance lay like another country. The moonlight lay on the waters, 152 a white sail fur off seemed to float into dreamy mist. She sot there still, and a queer look seemed to come into her face. I felt that she wuz thinkin’ of him, the lost lover of her youth. I felt that she wuz with him and not with me. I thought from the looks of her face she might think he had been insulted by the rude feet that had assayed to walk into the kingdom where he had rained, and rained still, I believe. Sez I to myself, mebby she is walkin’ with him in the past, and mebby in the futer, how could I tell, I felt queer and wadded up my hair with emotions that never before went into them hair pins.
After I had finished I sot down, as my habit is, to read a few verses of Skripter, to sort o’ carry with me in my journey through the unknown realms of Sleep. And as I make a practice of openin’ wherever I happen to—or I don’t really like that word happen—I let the book open where it will, and I wuz jest readin’ these words:
“Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes, the signs and the great miracles.”
When I hearn through my readin’, as one will, the whistle of the night boat comin’ in, and the noise of many steps goin’ along the walk below. 153 Then I opened the book agin and went on with my readin’:
“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but these things that are revealed belong to us.”