"
She was silent for a time, and stood with her eyes fixed on the
ground. Again raising them, her look was more mild and calm.
"Miles Coverdale!" said she.
"Well, Zenobia," I responded. "Can I do you any service?"
"Very little," she replied. "But it is my purpose, as you may well
imagine, to remove from Blithedale; and, most likely, I may not see
Hollingsworth again. A woman in my position, you understand, feels
scarcely at her ease among former friends. New faces,--unaccustomed
looks,--those only can she tolerate. She would pine among familiar
scenes; she would be apt to blush, too, under the eyes that knew her
secret; her heart might throb uncomfortably; she would mortify
herself, I suppose, with foolish notions of having sacrificed the
honor of her sex at the foot of proud, contumacious man. Poor
womanhood, with its rights and wrongs! Here will be new matter for
my course of lectures, at the idea of which you smiled, Mr. Coverdale,
a month or two ago. But, as you have really a heart and sympathies,
as far as they go, and as I shall depart without seeing Hollingsworth,
I must entreat you to be a messenger between him and me."
"Willingly," said I, wondering at the strange way in which her mind
seemed to vibrate from the deepest earnest to mere levity. "What is
the message?"
"True,--what is it?" exclaimed Zenobia. "After all, I hardly know.
On better consideration, I have no message. Tell him,--tell him
something pretty and pathetic, that will come nicely and sweetly into
your ballad,--anything you please, so it be tender and submissive
enough.
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