zzie
proposed to dig him a grave. They dug a great hole and took hold of the
corpse to lift him in; when suddenly he opened his eyes. Then they saw
that he was covered with wounds. He looked at them intently for some
time, turning his eyes from one to the other. At last he solemnly said,
"Amen!" and closed his eyes. Then she and her companion placed him in
the grave, and shovelled the earth over him, and stamped it down with
their feet.

He of the dark eyes and he of the wounds were the two constantly
recurring figures of Lizzie's reveries. She could never think of John
without thinking of the courteous Leatherborough gentleman, too. These
were the _data_ of her problem. These two figures stood like opposing
knights, (the black and the white,) foremost on the great chess-board of
fate. Lizzie was the wearied, puzzled player. She would idly finger the
other pieces, and shift them carelessly hither and thither; but it was
of no avail: the game lay between the two knights. She would shut her
eyes and long for some kind hand to come and tamper with the board; she
would open them and see the two knights standing immovable, face to
face. It was nothing new. A fancy had come in and offered defiance to a
fact; they must fight it out. Lizzie generously inclined to the fancy,
the unknown champion, with a reputation to make. Call her _blasee_ if you
like, this little girl, whose record told of a couple of dances and a
single lover, heartless, old before her time. Perhaps she deserves your
scorn. I confess she thought herself ill-used. By whom? by what?
wherein? These were questions Miss Crowe was not prepared to answer. Her
intellect was unequal to the stern logic of human events. She expected
two and two to make five: as why should they not for the nonce? She was
like an actor who finds himself on the stage with a half-learned part
and without sufficient wit to extemporize. Pray, where is the prompter?
Alas, Elizabeth, that you had no mother! Young girls are prone to fancy
that when once they have a lover, they have everything they need: a
conclusion inconsistent with the belief entertained by many persons,
that life begins with love. Lizzie's fortunes became old stories to her
before she had half read them through. Jack's wounds and danger were an
old story. Do not suppose that she had exhausted the lessons,
the suggestions of these awful events, their inspirations,
exhortations,--that she had wept as became the horror of the tr