"There she
is. Go in: I'll tend to the horse."
Abigail and her daughter appeared on the piazza. The mother was a
woman of fifty, thin and delicate in frame, but with a smooth,
placid beauty of countenance which had survived her youth. She was
dressed in a simple dove-colored gown, with book-muslin cap and
handkerchief, so scrupulously arranged that one might have
associated with her for six months without ever discovering a spot
on the former, or an uneven fold in the latter. Asenath, who
followed, was almost as plainly attired, her dress being a dark-
blue calico, while a white pasteboard sun-bonnet, with broad cape,
covered her head.
"Well, Abigail, how art thou?" said Eli, quietly giving his hand to
his wife.
"I'm glad to see thee back," was her simple welcome.
No doubt they had kissed each other as lovers, but Asenath had
witnessed this manifestation of affection but once in her life--
after the burial of a younger sister. The fact impressed her with
a peculiar sense of sanctity and solemnity: it was a caress wrung
forth by a season of tribulation, and therefore was too
earnest to be profaned to the uses of joy.
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