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Updated: May 19, 2025
Selah Tarrant and his wife had come, obtrusively, as she thought, for they never had had very much intercourse with Miss Birdseye; and if it was for Verena's sake, Verena was there to pay every tribute herself. Mrs. Tarrant had evidently hoped Miss Chancellor would ask her to stay on at Marmion, but Olive felt how little she was in a state for such heroics of hospitality.
Fortescue, "I thought you wouldn't mind. And please don't call me Elizabeth. It breaks my heart." "I must ask in fact, insist that you shall not ride that mare again," answered the Colonel sternly, without taking any notice of Mrs. Fortescue's breaking heart. "And her name is Birdseye," plaintively responded Mrs. Fortescue.
"Whatever it is," answered Chaplain Brown, smiling while he rubbed a bruised shin, "it hurts. It hurts pretty badly, too." Next, Mrs. Fortescue apologized profusely to the troopers who had been knocked down by the bashful Birdseye. After their kind, they preferred a kicker to a non-kicker, and accepted, with delighted grins, Mrs. Fortescue's sweet words. But it was another thing when Mrs.
Ransom had replied simply "Balderdash!" it being his theory, as we have perceived, that he knew much more about Verena's native bent than the young lady herself. This did not, however, as he was perfectly aware, prevent her feeling that she had come too late for the heroic age of New England life, and regarding Miss Birdseye as a battered, immemorial monument of it.
Basil took advantage of this intermission to ask Miss Birdseye if she would give him the great privilege of an introduction to Miss Verena. "Mrs. Farrinder will thank her for the company," he said, laughing, "but she won't thank her for me." Miss Birdseye manifested the greatest disposition to oblige him; she was so glad he had been impressed.
This gave Ransom time to recognise her; he knew in Boston no such figure as that save Miss Birdseye. Her party, her person, the exalted account Miss Chancellor gave of her, had kept a very distinct place in his mind; and while she stood there in dim circumspection she came back to him as a friend of yesterday.
On Verena, however, they produced no impression that prevented her from saying simply, without the least rancour, "Well, if you expect to draw me back five hundred years, I hope you won't tell Miss Birdseye." And as Ransom did not seize immediately the reason of her allusion, she went on, "You know she is convinced it will be just the other way.
"You mean for the other slaves!" he exclaimed, with a laugh. "You can carry them all the Bibles you want." "I want to carry them the Statute-book; that must be our Bible now." Ransom found himself liking Miss Birdseye very much, and it was quite without hypocrisy or a tinge too much of the local quality in his speech that he said: "Wherever you go, madam, it will matter little what you carry.
"Well, you are impressed too," said Miss Birdseye, looking at her philosophically. "It seems as if no one had escaped." Ransom was disappointed; he saw he was going to be taken away, and, before he could suppress it, an exclamation burst from his lips the first exclamation he could think of that would perhaps check his cousin's retreat: "Ah, Miss Olive, are you going to give up Mrs. Farrinder?"
The situation was too ridiculous for Miss Sommerton to remain very long indignant about it. So she put her hand in her pocket and drew out a plug of tobacco, and with a bow handed it to the artist. "Thanks," he replied; "I shall borrow a pipeful and give you back the remainder. Have you ever tried the English birdseye? I assure you it is a very nice smoking tobacco."
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