"About one hundred dollars."
"I think I can help him to make that up."
"You have already done enough, dear Miss Nancy. We could not ask more of you."
"No, but I am anxious to do all I can for you, my good girl. You are losing the greenest part of your lives. I feel that it is wrong for you to remain thus."
Seeing that I was in an unusually calm mood, she asked me to tell her the story of my life, or at least the main incidents. I entered upon the narrative with the same fidelity that I have observed in writing these memoirs. At many points and scenes I observed her weeping bitterly. Fearing that the excitement might prove too great for her strength, I several times urged her to let me stop; but she begged me to go on without heeding her, for she was deeply interested.
When I came to the account of my meeting with Mr. Trueman, she bent eagerly forward, and asked if it was Justinian Trueman, of Boston. Upon my answering in the affirmative, she exclaimed:
"How like him! The same noble, generous, disinterested spirit!"
"Do you know him, Miss Nancy?"
"Oh yes, child, he is one of our prominent Northern men, a very able lawyer; every one in the State of Massachusetts knows him by reputation, but I have a personal acquaintance also."
Just as I was about to ask her something of Mr. Trueman's history, Biddy came running in, exclaiming: