I obeyed her with pleasure, for I always liked to have her near me. She was so much more the friend than the mistress, that I never felt any reserve in her presence. All was love. As she took her seat in the arm-chair, I threw a shawl over her shoulders to protect her from any injurious influence of the evening air. She busied herself tying up the flowers; and their arrangement of color, &c., with a view to effect, would have done credit to a florist. My admiration was so much excited, that I could not deny myself the pleasure of an expression of it.
"Ah, yes," she answered, "this was one of the amusements of my youth. Many a bouquet have I tied up in my dear old home."
I thought I detected a change in her color, and heard a sigh, as she said this.
"Of what State are you a native, Miss Nancy?"
"Dear old Massachusetts," she answered, with a glow of enthusiasm.
"It is the State, of all others in the Union, for which I have the most respect."
"Ah, well may you say that, poor girl," she replied, "for its people treat your unfortunate race with more humanity than any of the others."
"I have read a great deal of their liberality and cultivation, of both mind and heart, which has excited my admiring interest. Then, too, I have known those born and reared beneath the shadow of its wise and beneficent laws, and the better I knew them, the more did my admiration for the State increase. Now I feel that Massachusetts is doubly dear to me, since I have learned that it is your birth-place."
She did not say anything, but her mild eyes were suffused with tears.
Just as I was about to speak to her of Mr. Trueman, Biddy came to announce tea, and, after that, Miss Nancy desired to be left alone. As was his custom, with eight o'clock came Henry. We sat out on the portico, with the moonlight shining over us, and talked of the future! I told him what Miss Nancy said of Massachusetts, and, I believe, he was seized with the idea of going thither after purchasing himself.