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Evelina’s Garden
by
Nobody spoke to her; people turned furtively after she had passed and stared after her, but they never spoke. This young Evelina did not seem to expect it. She passed along with the lids cast down over her blue eyes, and the rose and lavender scent of her garments came back in their faces.
But one night when she was walking slowly along, a full half-mile from home, she heard rapid footsteps behind, and the young minister, Thomas Merriam, came up beside her and spoke.
“Good-evening,” said he, and his voice was a little hoarse through nervousness.
Evelina started, and turned her fair face up towards his. “Good-evening,” she responded, and courtesied as she had been taught at school, and stood close to the wall, that he might pass; but Thomas Merriam paused also.
“I–” he began, but his voice broke. He cleared his throat angrily, and went on. “I have seen you in meeting,” he said, with a kind of defiance, more of himself than of her. After all, was he not the minister, and had he not the right to speak to everybody in the congregation? Why should he embarrass himself?
“Yes, sir,” replied Evelina. She stood drooping her head before him, and yet there was a certain delicate hauteur about her. Thomas was afraid to speak again. They both stood silent for a moment, and then Evelina stirred softly, as if to pass on, and Thomas spoke out bravely. “Is your cousin, Miss Adams, well?” said he.
“She is pretty well, I thank you, sir.”
“I’ve been wanting to–call,” he began; then he hesitated again. His handsome young face was blushing crimson.
Evelina’s own color deepened. She turned her face away. “Cousin Evelina never sees callers,” she said, with grave courtesy; “perhaps you did not know. She has not for a great many years.”
“Yes, I did know it,” returned Thomas Merriam; “that’s the reason I haven’t called.”
“Cousin Evelina is not strong,” remarked the young girl, and there was a savor of apology in her tone.
“But–” stammered Thomas; then he stopped again. “May I–has she any objections to–anybody’s coming to see you?”
Evelina started. “I am afraid Cousin Evelina would not approve,” she answered, primly. Then she looked up in his face, and a girlish piteousness came into her own. “I am very sorry,” she said, and there was a catch in her voice.
Thomas bent over her impetuously. All his ministerial state fell from him like an outer garment of the soul. He was young, and he had seen this girl Sunday after Sunday. He had written all his sermons with her image before his eyes, he had preached to her, and her only, and she had come between his heart and all the nations of the earth in his prayers. “Oh,” he stammered out, “I am afraid you can’t be very happy living there the way you do. Tell me–“
Evelina turned her face away with sudden haughtiness. “My cousin Evelina is very kind to me, sir,” she said.
“But–you must be lonesome with nobody–of your own age–to speak to,” persisted Thomas, confusedly.
“I never cared much for youthful company. It is getting dark; I must be going,” said Evelina. “I wish you good-evening, sir.”
“Sha’n’t I–walk home with you?” asked Thomas, falteringly.
“It isn’t necessary, thank you, and I don’t think Cousin Evelina would approve,” she replied, primly; and her light dress fluttered away into the dusk and out of sight like the pale wing of a moth.
Poor Thomas Merriam walked on with his head in a turmoil. His heart beat loud in his ears. “I’ve made her mad with me,” he said to himself, using the old rustic school-boy vernacular, from which he did not always depart in his thoughts, although his ministerial dignity guarded his conversations. Thomas Merriam came of a simple homely stock, whose speech came from the emotions of the heart, all unregulated by the usages of the schools. He was the first for generations who had aspired to college learning and a profession, and had trained his tongue by the models of the educated and polite. He could not help, at times, the relapse of his thoughts, and their speaking to himself in the dialect of his family and his ancestors. “She’s ‘way above me, and I ought to ha’ known it,” he further said, with the meekness of an humble but fiercely independent race, which is meek to itself alone. He would have maintained his equality with his last breath to an opponent; in his heart of hearts he felt himself below the scion of the one old gentle family of his native village.