When my
eyes are dimmer than they have yet come to be, I will go thither
again, and see if I did not catch the tone of his mind aright, and if
the cold and lifeless tint of his perceptions be not then repeated in
my own.
Yet it was unaccountable to myself, the interest that I felt in him.
"Have you any objection," said I, "to telling me who made those
little purses?"
"Gentlemen have often asked me that," said Moodie slowly; "but I
shake my head, and say little or nothing, and creep out of the way as
well as I can. I am a man of few words; and if gentlemen were to be
told one thing, they would be very apt, I suppose, to ask me another.
But it happens just now, Mr. Coverdale, that you can tell me more
about the maker of those little purses than I can tell you."
"Why do you trouble him with needless questions, Coverdale?"
interrupted Hollingsworth. "You must have known, long ago, that it
was Priscilla. And so, my good friend, you have come to see her?
Well, I am glad of it. You will find her altered very much for the
better, since that winter evening when you put her into my charge.
Why, Priscilla has a bloom in her cheeks, now!"
"Has my pale little girl a bloom?" repeated Moodie with a kind of
slow wonder. "Priscilla with a bloom in her cheeks! Ah, I am afraid
I shall not know my little girl. And is she happy?"
"Just as happy as a bird," answered Hollingsworth.
"Then, gentlemen," said our guest apprehensively," I don't think it
well for me to go any farther.
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