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Three years ago, Hannah Colson was, beyond all manner of dispute, the prettiest girl in Aberleigh. It was a rare union of face, form, complexion, and expression.
It was strange, she could not herself account for it; but with every added word of misery that set poor Dirk Colson lower and lower in the scale of humanity, there seemed to come into this woman's heart, and shine in her face, an assurance that he was to be a "chosen vessel unto God."
Drawn up close to the sidewalk stood a carriage and a pair of horses that Dirk could not help giving admiring attention to, despite the rain. A fine horse always held his attention. No thought of the occupants of the carriage came to him, not even after a head leaned forward and a hand beckoned; of course it was beckoning to somebody else. Then a clear voice spoke: "Mr. Colson!"
The mother was not there to count out the hoarded rent with trembling fingers, and save the wretched home to them for another month. She would never be there again. He had nothing with which to pay rent; he had nowhere to move. Yet she had called him Mr. Colson, and seemed to expect him to act for himself and Mart. It was she who answered the agent, but she spoke to Dirk.
I do not think it any wonder that, as she rocked and sewed, and thought out her great thought, there fell tears on the work she was doing. This was the thought: Suppose Dirk Colson should want to take his sister.
In fact, it would perhaps be difficult to define "Mart" Colon's position in the house. Yet she was, as I said, becoming known among the young ladies outside as "Mattie Colson, that handsome young Colson's sister; as pretty as a doll, and a protege of that lovely Mrs. Roberts, you know."
As for the Young Ladies' Band, I do not include them when I talk of the girls "outside," what they had done for Mattie Colson she could not have told you though she tried, her eyes shining with tears. The days had come wherein the very matrons who had said that it was a strange thing for Mrs.
Sallie Calkins' two rooms were much better than the cellar in which the Colson family had lived; and there was a chance to rent a room next to Sallie's, with a closet opening from it for Dirk. How would it do to have them board with Sallie? The suggestion came first from Gracie Dennis, and sounded reasonable. Mrs. Roberts was almost ashamed to dislike it as much as she did.
Edition, 1810, it is said that this is rendered improbable by the account given of Colson, by Davies, in his life of Garrick, which was certainly written under Dr. Johnson's inspection, and, what relates to Colson, probably from Johnson's confirmation. Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. v. p. 696. Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. v, p. 15 Ibid. vol. viii. Warburton's Letters, 8vo. Edit. p. 369.
Colson"; she never talked about Dirk under any other name; she even taught herself to think of him as "Mr. Colson." Consequently, when she spoke the name in his presence, there was not a trace of unnaturalness in tone or manner. The others tried in vain to follow her example. Dr. Everett could not speak of him in this way without slight hesitation and a touch of embarrassment.
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