A Second Home | Page 3

regular passers in the street; she

caught their glances, remarked on their gait, their dress, their
countenance, and almost seemed to be offering her daughter, her
gossiping eyes so evidently tried to attract some magnetic sympathy by
manoeuvres worthy of the stage. It was evident that this little review
was as good as a play to her, and perhaps her single amusement.
The daughter rarely looked up. Modesty, or a painful consciousness of
poverty, seemed to keep her eyes riveted to the work-frame; and only
some exclamation of surprise from her mother moved her to show her
small features. Then a clerk in a new coat, or who unexpectedly
appeared with a woman on his arm, might catch sight of the girl's
slightly upturned nose, her rosy mouth, and gray eyes, always bright
and lively in spite of her fatiguing toil. Her late hours had left a trace on
her face by a pale circle marked under each eye on the fresh rosiness of
her cheeks. The poor child looked as if she were made for love and
cheerfulness--for love, which had drawn two perfect arches above her
eyelids, and had given her such a mass of chestnut hair, that she might
have hidden under it as under a tent, impenetrable to the lover's
eye--for cheerfulness, which gave quivering animation to her nostrils,
which carved two dimples in her rosy cheeks, and made her quick to
forget her troubles; cheerfulness, the blossom of hope, which gave her
strength to look out without shuddering on the barren path of life.
The girl's hair was always carefully dressed. After the manner of Paris
needlewomen, her toilet seemed to her quite complete when she had
brushed her hair smooth and tucked up the little short curls that played
on each temple in contrast with the whiteness of her skin. The growth
of it on the back of her neck was so pretty, and the brown line, so
clearly traced, gave such a pleasing idea of her youth and charm, that
the observer, seeing her bent over her work, and unmoved by any
sound, was inclined to think of her as a coquette. Such inviting promise
had excited the interest of more than one young man, who turned round
in the vain hope of seeing that modest countenance.
"Caroline, there is a new face that passes regularly by, and not one of
the old ones to compare with it."
These words, spoken in a low voice by her mother one August morning

in 1815, had vanquished the young needlewoman's indifference, and
she looked out on the street; but in vain, the stranger was gone.
"Where has he flown to?" said she.
"He will come back no doubt at four; I shall see him coming, and will
touch your foot with mine. I am sure he will come back; he has been
through the street regularly for the last three days; but his hours vary.
The first day he came by at six o'clock, the day before yesterday it was
four, yesterday as early as three. I remember seeing him occasionally
some time ago. He is some clerk in the Prefet's office who has moved
to the Marais.--Why!" she exclaimed, after glancing down the street,
"our gentleman of the brown coat has taken to wearing a wig; how
much it alters him!"
The gentleman of the brown coat was, it would seem, the individual
who commonly closed the daily procession, for the old woman put on
her spectacles and took up her work with a sigh, glancing at her
daughter with so strange a look that Lavater himself would have found
it difficult to interpret. Admiration, gratitude, a sort of hope for better
days, were mingled with pride at having such a pretty daughter.
At about four in the afternoon the old lady pushed her foot against
Caroline's, and the girl looked up quickly enough to see the new actor,
whose regular advent would thenceforth lend variety to the scene. He
was tall and thin, and wore black, a man of about forty, with a certain
solemnity of demeanor; as his piercing hazel eye met the old woman's
dull gaze, he made her quake, for she felt as though he had the gift of
reading hearts, or much practice in it, and his presence must surely be
as icy as the air of this dank street. Was the dull, sallow complexion of
that ominous face due to excess of work, or the result of delicate
health?
The old woman supplied twenty different answers to this question; but
Caroline, next day, discerned the lines of long mental suffering on that
brow that was so prompt to frown. The rather hollow cheeks of the
Unknown bore the stamp of the seal which sorrow sets on its victims as
if