Most I hate is leavin' 'Manda Grier, she is the one that I've roomed
with ever since I first came to Boston; but Lem and her don't get on
very well; they hain't really either of 'em _got_ anything against
each other now, but they don't _like_ very _we_-e-ll; and,
of course, I got to have the friends that he wants me to have, and
that's what 'Manda Grier says, _to_-o-o; and so it's just as
well we're goin' to be where they won't _cla_-a-sh."
She talked to Mrs. Sewell in a low voice; but she kept her eyes upon
Lemuel all the time; and when Sewell took him and his mother the
length of the front drawing-room away, she was quite distraught, and
answered at random till he came back.
Sewell did not know what to think. Would this dependence warm her
betrothed to greater tenderness than he now showed, or would its
excess disgust him? He was not afraid that Lemuel would ever be
unkind to her; but he knew that in marriage kindness was not enough.
He looked at Lemuel, serious, thoughtful, refined in his beauty by
suffering; and then his eye wandered to Statira's delicate
prettiness, so sweet, so full of amiable cheerfulness, so undeniably
light and silly. What chiefly comforted him was the fact of an ally
whom the young thing had apparently found in Lemuel's mother.
Whether that grim personage's ignorant pride in her son had been
satisfied with a girl of Statira's style and fashion, and proven
capableness in housekeeping, or whether some fancy for butterfly
prettiness lurking in the fastnesses of the old woman's rugged
nature had been snared by the gay face and dancing eyes, it was
apparent that she at least was in love with Statira.
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