The Guardian Angel | Page 9

through whole fields of suggestive speculation, until the dumb growths
of thought ripened in both their souls into articulate speech,
consentingly, as the movement comes after the long stillness of a
Quaker meeting.
Their lips opened at the same moment. "You don't mean"--began Nurse
Byloe, but stopped as she heard Miss Badlam also speaking.
"They need n't drag the pond," she said. "They need n't go beating the
woods as if they were hunting a patridge,--though for that matter
Myrtle Hazard was always more like a patridge than she was like a
pullet. Nothing ever took hold of that girl,--not catechising, nor
advising, nor punishing. It's that dreadful will of hers never was broke.
I've always been afraid that she would turn out a child of wrath. Did y'
ever watch her at meetin' playing with posies and looking round all the
time of the long prayer? That's what I've seen her do many and many a
time. I'm afraid--Oh dear! Miss Byloe, I'm afraid to say--what I'm
afraid of. Men are so wicked, and young girls are full of deceit and so
ready to listen to all sorts of artful creturs that take advantage of their
ignorance and tender years." She wept once more, this time with sobs
that seemed irrepressible.
"Dear suz!" said the nurse, "I won't believe no sech thing as wickedness
about Myrtle Hazard. You mean she's gone an' run off with some
good-for-nothin' man or other? If that ain't what y' mean, what do y'

mean? It can't be so, Miss Badlam: she's one o' my babies. At any rate,
I handled her when she fust come to this village,--and none o' my
babies never did sech a thing. Fifteen year old, and be bringin' a whole
family into disgrace! If she was thirty year old, or five-an'-thirty or
more, and never'd had a chance to be married, and if one o' them artful
creturs you was talkin' of got hold of her, then, to be sure,--why, dear
me!--law! I never thought, Miss Badlam!--but then of course you could
have had your pickin' and choosin' in the time of it; and I don't mean to
say it's too late now if you felt called that way, for you're better lookin'
now than some that's younger, and there's no accountin' for tastes."
A sort of hysteric twitching that went through the frame of Cynthia
Badlam dimly suggested to the old nurse that she was not making her
slightly indiscreet personality much better by her explanations. She
stopped short, and surveyed the not uncomely person of the maiden
lady sitting before her with her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, and
one hand clenching the arm of the reeking-chair, as if some spasm had
clamped it there. The nurse looked at her with a certain growing
interest she had never felt before. It was the first time for some years
that she had had such a chance, partly because Miss Cynthia had often
been away for long periods,--partly because she herself had been busy
professionally. There was no occasion for her services, of course, in the
family at The Poplars; and she was always following round from place
to place after that everlasting migratory six-weeks or less old baby.
There was not a more knowing pair of eyes, in their way, in a circle of
fifty miles, than those kindly tranquil orbs that Nurse Byloe fixed on
Cynthia Badlam. The silver threads in the side fold of hair, the delicate
lines at the corner of the eye, the slight drawing down at the angle of
the mouth,--almost imperceptible, but the nurse dwelt upon it,--a
certain moulding of the features as of an artist's clay model worked by
delicate touches with the fingers, showing that time or pain or grief had
had a hand in shaping them, the contours, the adjustment of every fold
of the dress, the attitude, the very way of breathing, were all passed
through the searching inspection of the ancient expert, trained to know
all the changes wrought by time and circumstance. It took not so long
as it takes to describe it, but it was an analysis of imponderables, equal

to any of Bunsen's with the spectroscope.
Miss Badlam removed her handkerchief and looked in a furtive,
questioning way, in her turn, upon the nurse.
"It's dreadful close here,--I'm 'most smothered," Nurse Byloe said; and,
putting her hand to her throat, unclasped the catch of the necklace of
gold beads she had worn since she was a baby,--a bead having been
added from time to time as she thickened. It lay in a deep groove of her
large neck, and had not troubled her in breathing before, since the day
when her husband was run over by an ox-team.
At this moment Miss Silence Withers entered,