"
Mrs. Blake having got her patient back into the chair, administered wine
and water to prevent a recurrence of the malady.
A week or two after this Esmerelda informed me one morning that there
were great rejoicings in the Mill Road.
"I think they would like to see you there. I heard Mr. Bowen and some of
them talking about you last night, after meeting."
"Mr. Bowen--was he there?"
"Oh, yes; and he sees as well as anybody."
"I will go to-day," I said, with difficulty restraining my delight.
"Some of the people who attend Beech Street Church think you are a little
above everybody in Cavendish."
Esmerelda spoke with great cordiality. Now that I had been to New York,
and the dressmakers there had transformed me, outwardly, into a
fashionable woman, I noticed that her respect had considerably increased;
and, furthermore, that some of her own costumes had been made in almost
exact imitation of mine. No higher compliment than this could Esmerelda
have paid me; neither could I help acknowledging that she looked very
graceful and lady-like in her Sunday garment, and often I fell to
speculating how she would have appeared if half her life had been spent
at a first-class boarding-school. A painful sensation, probably akin to
jealousy, suggested that probably she would have satisfied my guardian's
fastidious tastes better than I could ever do.
But I could never treat her in the same cordial way that I treated
Mrs. Blake and the Larkums, and several others of her class.
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