summer
night, all that lay deepest in her heart. It was in this way that I came
to know that she had loved one who was far above her.

"No, dear, him I speak of could never think of me," she said. "When
we was young together his mother didn't favor the match, an' done
everything she could to part us; and folks thought we both married well,
but't wa'n't what either one of us wanted most; an' now we're left alone
again, an' might have had each other all the time. He was above bein' a
seafarin' man, an' prospered more than most; he come of a high family,
an' my lot was plain an' hard-workin'. I ain't seen him for some years;
he's forgot our youthful feelin's, I expect, but a woman's heart is
different; them feelin's comes back when you think you've done with
'em, as sure as spring comes with the year. An' I've always had ways of
hearin' about him."

She stood in the centre of a braided rug, and its rings of black and
gray seemed to circle about her feet in the dim light. Her height and
massiveness in the low room gave her the look of a huge sibyl, while the
strange fragrance of the mysterious herb blew in from the little garden.

III. The Schoolhouse

FOR SOME DAYS after this, Mrs. Todd's customers came and went past my
windows, and, haying-time being nearly over, strangers began to arrive
from the inland country, such was her widespread reputation. Sometimes
I saw a pale young creature like a white windflower left over into
midsummer, upon whose face consumption had set its bright and wistful
mark; but oftener two stout, hard-worked women from the farms came
together, and detailed their symptoms to Mrs. Todd in loud and cheerful
voices, combining the satisfactions of a friendly gossip with the
medical opportunity. They seemed to give much from their own store of
therapeutic learning. I became aware of the school in which my landlady
had strengthened her natural gift; but hers was always the governing
mind, and the final command, "Take of hy'sop one handful" (or whatever
herb it was), was received in respectful silence. One afternoon, when
I had listened,--it was impossible not to listen, with cottonless
ears,--and then laughed and listened again, with an idle pen in my hand,
during a particularly spirited and personal conversation, I reached for
my hat, and, taking blotting-book and all under my arm, I resolutely
fled further temptation, and walked out past the fragrant green garden
and up the dusty road. The wa