Chapter 32 - Page 2

for herself. "It is because I am a child of
shame," she told him, dry-eyed.

He fidgeted on his chair, and asked, "What's that?" not very honestly.

"I don't know," she said, "no one will tell me, but it is something you
can't love."

"You have a terrible wish to be loved," he said in wonder, and she
nodded her head wistfully. "That is not what I wish for most of all,
though," she told him, and when he asked what she wished for most of
all, she said, "To love somebody; oh, it would be sweet!"

To Tommy, most sympathetic of mortals, she seemed a very pathetic little
figure, and tears came to his eyes as he surveyed her; he could always
cry very easily.

"If it wasna for Elspeth," he began, stammering, "I could love you, but
you winna let a body do onything on the sly."

It was a vague offer, but she understood, and became the old Grizel at
once. "I don't want you to love me," she said indignantly; "I don't
think you know how to love."

"Neither can you know, then," retorted Tommy, huffily, "for there's
nobody for you to love."

"Yes, there is," she said, "and I do love her and she loves me."

"But wha is she?"

"That girl." To his amazement she pointed to her own reflection in the
famous mirror the size of which had scandalized Thrums. Tommy thought
this affection for herself barely respectable, but he dared not say so
lest he should be put to the door. "I love her ever so much," Grizel
went on, "and she is so fond of me, she hates to see me unhappy. Don't
look so sad, dearest, darlingest," she cried vehemently; "I love you,
you know, oh, you sweet!" and with each epithet she kissed her
reflection and looked defiantly at the boy.

"But you canna put your arms round her and hug her," he pointed out
triumphantly, and so he had the last word after all. Unfortunately
Grizel kept this side of her, new even to Tommy, hidden from all others,
and her unresponsiveness lost her many possible friends. Even Miss
Ailie, who now had a dressmaker in the blue-and-white room, sitting on a
bedroom chair and sewing for her life (oh, the agony--or is it the
rapture?--of having to decide whether to marry in gray with beads or
brown plain to the throat), even sympathetic Miss Ailie, having met with
several rebuffs, said that Grizel had a most unaffectionate nature, and,
"Ay, she's hardy," agreed the town, "but it's better, maybe, for
hersel'." There are none so unpopular as the silent ones.

If only Miss Ailie, or others like her, could have slipped noiselessly