Before one of the cottages Miss Jo drew rein, and rapped. While waiting for the door to open, the flutter of a skirt in the back garden caught her eye; and, peering round the corner of the house, she had a full view of it and its wearer.
And Miss Jo set herself to contemplate the view with keenest interest. To see the wearer of that fluttering skirt it was that had brought Miss Jo all the way from her own home so early in the morning, though she had never set eyes on her before.
Uncommonly friendly, perhaps you are thinking. Not at all: Miss Jo was a woman, consequently curious; and curiosity, not kindness, had brought her out.
The sight was very well worth looking at. You might have gazed for a week, steadily, and not grown tired of the prospect. A figure, slender and small, wearing a black dress, white linen cuffs at the wrists, a white linen collar, fastened with a knot of crape, a profusion of pretty brown hair, worn in braids, and low in the neck, hands like a child's, small and white. She was leaning against a tree, a gnarled old rowan tree, with her face turned sea-ward, watching the fishing-boats gliding in and out through the fog; but presently, at some noise in the street, she glanced around, and Miss Jo saw her face. A small, pale face, very pale, with pretty features, and lit with large, soft eyes. A face that was a history, could Miss Jo have read it; pale and patient, gentle and sweet, and in the brown eye a look of settled melancholy. This young lady in black had been learning the great lesson of life, that most of us poor mortals must learn, sooner or later, endurance—the lesson One too sublime to name came on earth to teach.
Miss Jo dodged back, the door swung open, and a fat girl, bursting out of her hooks and eyes, and with a head like a tow mop, opened the door. Miss Jo strode in without ceremony.
"Good morning, Betsy Ann! Is Mrs. Marsh at home this morning?"
"Yes, Miss Jo," said Betsy Ann, opening a door to the left, for there was a door on either hand; that to the right, leading to the drawing-room of the cottage, and a staircase at the end leading to the sleeping-room above; the door to the left admitted you to the sitting-room and dining-room, for it was both in one—a pleasant little room enough, with a red and green ingrain carpet, cane-seated chairs, red moreen window-curtains on the two windows, one looking on the bay, the other on the street. There was a little upright piano in one corner, a lounge in another; pictures on the papered walls; a Dutch clock and some china cats and dogs and shepherdesses on the mantel-piece; a coal-fire in the Franklin, and a table laid for breakfast.
The room had but one occupant, a faded and feeble-looking woman, who sat in a low rocking-chair, her feet crossed on the fender, a shawl around her, and a book in her hand. She looked up in her surprise at her early visitor.
"Law! Miss Blake, is it you? Who'd have thought it? Betsy Ann, give Miss Blake a chair."
"It's quite a piece from our house here, and I feel kind of tired," said Miss Jo, seating herself. "Your fire feels comfortable, Mrs. Marsh; these foggy days are chilly. Ain't you had breakfast yet?"