"
"It is for use, not beauty," answered Priscilla. "I could have
embroidered it and made it much prettier, if I pleased."
While holding up the nightcap and admiring the fine needlework, I
perceived that Priscilla had a sealed letter which she was waiting
for me to take. It had arrived from the village post-office that
morning. As I did not immediately offer to receive the letter, she
drew it back, and held it against her bosom, with both hands clasped
over it, in a way that had probably grown habitual to her. Now, on
turning my eyes from the nightcap to Priscilla, it forcibly struck me
that her air, though not her figure, and the expression of her face,
but not its features, had a resemblance to what I had often seen in a
friend of mine, one of the most gifted women of the age. I cannot
describe it. The points easiest to convey to the reader were a
certain curve of the shoulders and a partial closing of the eyes,
which seemed to look more penetratingly into my own eyes, through the
narrowed apertures, than if they had been open at full width. It was
a singular anomaly of likeness coexisting with perfect dissimilitude.
"Will you give me the letter, Priscilla?" said I.
She started, put the letter into my hand, and quite lost the look
that had drawn my notice.
"Priscilla," I inquired, "did you ever see Miss Margaret Fuller?"
"No," she answered.
"Because," said I, "you reminded me of her just now,--and it happens,
strangely enough, that this very letter is from her.
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