I MAKE A NARROW ESCAPE.
It is a serious thing to be as bashful as I am. There's nothing at all funny about it, though some people seem to think there is. I was assured, years ago, that it would wear off and betray the brass underneath; but I must have been triple-plated. I have had rubs enough to wear out a wash-board, yet there doesn't a bit of brass come to the surface yet. Beauty may be only skin-deep; modesty, like mine, pervades the grain. If I really believed my bashfulness was only cuticle-deep, I'd be flayed to-day, and try and grow a hardier complexion without any Bloom of Youth in it. No use! I could pave a ten-thousand-acre prairie with the "good intentions" I have wasted, the firm resolutions I have broken. Born to be bashful is only another way of expressing the Bible truth, "Born to trouble as the sparks are to fly upward."
When I sat down by the elderly lady in the railway train, I felt comparatively at ease. She was older than mother, and I didn't mind her rather aggressive looks and ways; in short, I seemed to feel that in case of necessity she would protect me. Not that I was afraid of anything, but she would probably at least keep me from proposing to any more young ladies. Alas! how could I have any presentiment of the worse danger lurking in store for me? How could I, young, innocent, and inexperienced, foresee the unforeseeable? I could not. Reviewing all the circumstances by the light of wiser days, I still deny that I was in any way, shape, or manner to blame for what occurred. I sat in my half of the seat, occupying as little room as possible, my eyes fixed on the crimson plush cushions of the seat before me, my thoughts busy with the mortifying past, and the great unknown future into which I was blindly rushing at the rate of thirty miles an hour—sat there, dreading the great city into which I was so soon to plunge—when a voice, closely resembling vinegar sweetened with honey, said, close to my ear:
"Goin' to New York, sir?"
"Yes, ma'am," I answered, coming out of my reverie with a little jump.
"I'm real glad," said my companion, taking off her blue spectacles, and leaning toward me confidentially; "so I am. I'm quite unprotected, sir, quite, and I shall be thankful to place myself under your care. I'm goin' down to the city to buy my spring stock o' millinery, an' any little attention you can show me will be gratefully received—gratefully. I don't mind admitting to you, young man, for you look pure and uncorrupted, that I am terribly afraid of men. They are wicked, heartless creatures. I feel that I might more safely trust myself with ravening wolves than with men in general, but you are different. You have had a good mother."
"Yes, ma'am, I have," I responded, rather warmly.
I was pleased at her commendation of me and mother, but puzzled as to the character of the danger to which she referred. I finally concluded that she was afraid of being robbed, and I put my lips close to her ear, so that no one should overhear us, and asked:
"Do you carry your money about you?—you ought not to run such a risk. I've been told there are always one or more thieves on every express train."
"My dear young friend," she whispered back, very, very close in my ear, "I was not thinking of money—that is all in checks, safely deposited in—in—in te-he! inside the lining of my waist. I was only referring to the dangers which ever beset the unmarried lady, especially the unsophisticated maiden, far, far from her native village. Why, would you believe it, already, sir, since I left home, a man, a gentleman, sitting in the very seat where you sit now, made love to me, out-and-out!"