cidentally stumbled upon her trouble and told me how wretched she was,
asking if in America there was not something for her to do.

"It was at this time that Jamie was born and Mary, the girl who went out
with us, was married to an Englishman, making it necessary for Hatty to
find some one to take her place. Hearing of this, Genevra came one day,
and to my secret delight offered herself as half companion, half
waiting-maid to Hatty. Anything was preferable to the life she led, she
said, pleading so hard that Hatty, after an interview with the old
aunt--a purse-proud, vulgar woman, who seemed glad to be rid of her
charge--consented to receive her, and Genevra became one of our family,
an equal rather than a menial, whom Hatty treated with as much
consideration as if she had been a sister. I wish I could tell you how
beautiful Genevra Lambert was at that period of her life. I have her
picture, which I will show you by and by, but it will not convey an
adequate idea of her as she was then, with her brilliant English
complexion, her eyes so full of poetry and passion, her perfect
features, and, more than all, the wondrous smile, which would have made
a plain face handsome. She was full of life and spirits, with enough of
coquetry about her to fascinate and turn older heads than mine.

"Of course I came to love her, and loved her all the more for the
opposition I knew my family would throw in the way of my marrying the
daughter of an English apothecary, and one who was voluntarily filling a
servant's place. But with my mother across the sea, I could do anything;
and when Genevra told me of a base fellow, as she termed him, who, since
she was a child, had sought her for his wife, and still pursued her with
his letters, my passions all were roused, and I offered myself at once.
I do not think she anticipated this when she told me of the letters, as
it might seem to you. She was neither designing nor artful, but, on the
contrary, wholly open-hearted and truthful, telling me the contents of
the letter because I found her weeping over it and insisted upon knowing
the cause. Her answer to my offer was a decided refusal. She knew her
position, she said, and she knew mine, just as she knew the nature of
the feeling which prompted me to act thus toward her. Although just my
age, she was older in judgment and experience, and she seemed to
understand the difference between our relative positions. I was not
indifferent to her, she said,