“O lank a mercy on me!
This surely can’t be she,”
it would have greatly complicated the puzzle to her. Yet, perhaps, there comes to most of us a time when some unexpected development in our nearest and dearest makes us doubt whether we have ever really understood them.
The love story was only a thread that ran through the book, but I thought it was beautiful. And that, too, was a wonder to me, for Octavia had never been a girl to have lovers—unless one counted Joel Farnham, who used to sing tenor to her alto in the church choir, but who had gone out West to practice law with his brother, and so far as I knew had never written to her.
“How—how did you know how?” I stammered, with tears in my eyes, and all my heart’s delight in my face. I knew it was there, because I saw it reflected in Octavia’s, and it made her almost pretty. Octavia was plain; she had the Partridge nose—that was like Lady Macbeth’s spot that would not out, in our family, and she had a sallow face, dark and thin, and with blue eyes that did not seem to belong to her. But at that moment, with the flush of delight on her face, Octavia was almost pretty. And it pleased me that she should really care for my appreciation, although she had called me the average public, and said I wasn’t cultivated.
“Bathsheba, do you really think that people will read it?” she asked, with a little catch in her voice.
“Read it! I should think so!” I cried. “Why, it’s better than almost anything in the Palmyra public library!”
“Oh—oh, Bathsheba! think of Thackeray and George Eliot!” Octavia responded deprecatingly. But still I could see that my extreme praise was not disagreeable to her.
And at that moment my practical mind seemed to suddenly turn visionary, and I beheld Octavia’s name at the very top of Fame’s deathless roll, and I counted it all joy to make butter and cheese and preserves to support her glorious career.
“Then, Bathsheba, if people will read the book it will sell!” said Octavia, firmly. And I gasped for breath. Of course it would sell! Octavia would be rich. My domestic efforts would be unnecessary, so far as she was concerned. A great author would have no need of the proceeds of the homely products of Groundnut Hill Farm. I am glad to be able to say for myself that in that moment I was too full of joy and pride to have any abashed or shut-out feeling. To be the sister of a great author would be quite enough for me!