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You see, it belonged to pa's mother, and I calkerlated to wear it a lifetime for winter best, but the fashion papers do say shawls are out of it, and this is the only use for them, which Lurella holds. I can't ever take the same comfert in a bindin' sack, noway; and pa, he's that riled about the shawl bein' used to set on, I daren't leave the door open.
It's quite likely that Lurella, with the traditions of her queer world, has not imagined anything anomalous in her position. She may realize certain inconveniences. But she must see great advantages in it. Poor girl! How she must be rioting on the united devotion of cabin and forecastle, after the scanty gallantries of a hill town peopled by elderly unmarried women! I'm glad of it, for her sake.
"Of course, I know what a simple and humble fellow you are, but you've no idea how that exterior of yours might impose upon the agricultural imagination; it has its effect upon me, in my pastoral moods." Dunham made a gesture of protest, and Staniford went on: "Country people have queer ideas of us, sometimes. Possibly Lurella was afraid of you.
"I hope," he said presently, "that I know how to respect convictions, even of those adhering to the Church in Error." Staniford laughed again. "I see you have not converted Lurella. Well, I like that in her, too. I wish I could have the arguments, pro and con. It would have been amusing.
"In other words," said Staniford, after Dunham had reported the whole case to him, "she treated your hurt vanity as if you had been her pet schoolboy. She lured you away from yourself, and got you to talking and thinking of other things. Lurella is deep, I tell you. What consummate tacticians the least of women are!
When that woman was in full fascination it made me gasp. I choked for a breath of fresh air; for a taste of spring-water; for Lurella!" It was a long time since Staniford had used this name, and the sound of it made him laugh. "It's droll but I always think of her as Lurella; I wish it was her name! Why, it was like heaven to see her face when I got back to the ship.
Staniford paused, and suddenly added: "Have you been making love to Lurella?" He said this in his ironical manner, but his smile was rather ghastly. "For shame, Staniford!" cried Dunham. But he reddened violently. "Then it isn't with Miss Hibbard that you want my help. I'm glad of that. It would have been awkward. I'm a little afraid of Miss Hibbard.
It's a pity that they have to work so often in such dull material as men; they ought always to have women to operate on. The youngest of them has more wisdom in human nature than the sages of our sex. I must say, Lurella is magnanimous, too. She might have taken her revenge on you for pitying her yesterday when she sat in that warehouse door on the wharf.
After she had welcomed me and asked me to "lay off" my things, she hesitated a moment, and then, opening the book where her fat finger was keeping the place, she laid it on my lap, saying in a whisper: "Would you tell me if that is true, Mrs. Evan? Lurella says you hobnob some with the Bluff folks, and I wanted to make sure before we break it to pa."
We all read in such a literary way, now; we don't read simply for the joy or profit of it; we expect to talk about it, and say how it is this and that; and I've no doubt that we're sub-consciously harassed, all the time, with an automatic process of criticism. Now Lurella, I fancy, reads with the sense of the days when people read in private, and not in public, as we do.
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