us blind.

XIX

THE BASIN

"What I thought first when I saw you--I never mind that now."

Vesty's words: and "You shall never want or suffer while I have hands
to work with." So it seems that, at the Basin, even one poor and
afflicted may have good hope to be sustained!

There was a woman once, beautiful and high, who, spurning me, would
have married me for my wealth and name.

But pity is sweet and true. I am not ashamed of pity. Some time--if
all things failed her--should I even say, "Vesty, could you marry me,
for pity--for pity, Vesty?" For it was the thought of the Basins that
compassion was greater than love, in some way the diviner side of love.

Then should I turn on her and say, sly as Captain Leezur--alas! so much
slyer: "My lady! My Lady of M----; there are none, even among the rich
and high, who can condescend to you; wide lands have you, you and your
little son, possessions and palaces; and others you shall build where
you will, only come and be pitiful where you move: the world needs not
these, but love and pity like thine, O Vesty of the Basins!"

But the time was not yet to plead my cause for pity. I shall know if
ever that time comes. I have never mistaken Vesty. I wait.

"For pity"--for it is not in the power of gold or rank to exalt her. I
cannot exalt her.

It is sweet to bear about with one the secret of a strange country.
But, ah me! I love the Basin. I love the ragged shawl that Vesty
holds at her throat. Nowhere else will the winter come so dreary and
beautiful, with wild hearth fires. And Fate, bidding me hope, may
crush me. As God wills. I wait.

It is but late summer now. There is a meeting.

"It 's been a very busy time o' year," said Elder Skates, with timid,
inoffensive apology; "and we've ruther neglected religion lately. But
I hope we've gathered here to the old school-house once more this
Sunday afternoon, with a dispersition and a willin' and firm
determination that as for us we will not let 'er drop."

Vesty had a native sense of the humorous, but the holy lids were down;
only the mouth trembled a little. Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar
were finishing a game of croquet with the one set of those implements
which the Basin possessed, dedicated for Sundays, and to the
school-house yard, as being dimly understood to be a sort of Sabbatical
pastime. Their voices pealed in with unconscious vigor through the
open windows:

"Did ye shove her throug