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    184 CHANCE ENCOUNTERS.

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Do You Ever Speculate On The Character A...

    they liold in their very hands ? So it is , and so it always will be . And as I thought and thought of these two people , he became

    again absorbed in his paper , and she drifted far , farther away , past happy islands , whose sight brought a flush of remembered joy

    on her face—through perilous storms where there had been a struggle for life and death , and on , on , over a widedreary , dark

    , sea that would one day—but how far off that day seemed—reach to a golden haven of rest and peace . At last the slackening of the

    train roused us all , and a carriage and servants were waiting my fellow-travellers at the small station where they alighted . I do not

    think she had even noticed me at all , and he with the merest passing observation ; and yet I had felt alternately indignant with

    his obtuseness , then thankful for it , and guessed at his character , his past and his futurewhile my heart had ached for her with a

    , pity which , it may be , no other had even dreamed she was needing . One of niy cousins is very fond of loitering over her purchases ,

    and to accompany her on a " shopping" expedition would be weary work for me if I had not the resource of watching and

    speculating on the neighboring purchasers at the counter . I saw a young lady once in a shop choosing her wedding dress , whose face ,

    with its stern , controlled look of hopeless resignation , told me a good deal . I remember the delight with which her hard , worldly

    mother expatiated on the richness of the silk and discussed the merits and width of the flounces . By what series of petty

    persecutions or unfair persuasion had the poor girl been driven to this _marriage , I wondered . I never had a stronger desire in my life

    to speak to a stranger , for I felt as if one word would nerve her even thenand give her strength to extricate herselfand there was

    , , no lack of power in her face . It is as well I did not , perhaps , or I might have been given in charge as drunkor sent home in the

    , tender care of the shopman , as crazy . What strange alternations of hope and fear I have seen in people

    waiting for their letters at a country post-office ! How I have heard women , whose trembling voice and flushing

    face showed how much they hoped and feared , assure a companion that it was " almost impossible they could hear to-day ; they did not

    expect it . " A subtle feminine superstition that to say so gives them a better chance ; orperhapsa slender thread thrown across

    ,,, the disappointment , if it does come ; as they can then say— " I did not expect to hear . I said beforehand it was unlikely . "

    And yet the gruff manner and aifected unconcern of men has sometimes struck me even more painfully .

    I used to fetch my letters once from a north country town regularly on Saturdays . I got there as soon as the box oj _> ened , and

    voice there , in waiting which week he asked after week "Any , was letter an old for farmer me from . I America remember yet the ? '

    and the eager eyes with , which he watched the slow , stupid youth ,

    who deliberately turned over the bundle , and told him there was

    184 Chance Encounters.

    184 CHANCE ENCOUNTERS .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1860, page 184, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111860/page/40/