It's hardly a tale for a lady."
"I won't stop you," said Mary stubbornly, beginning to see that every
inch of this woman's bitter fortress would be yielded grudgingly, and
that pain and courage were the only measure she respected. "You must
tell me everything, from the beginning."
"That would take many days, child, and even then you would not know
the half of it. I will tell you now only those events which concern
yourself, along with such glimpses of my youth which you will
understand, and are needful."
"I'm listening," said the girl.
"Very well." And the old woman began her tale.
"When I was scarcely older than you are now, and no less naive, I fell
in love with a man twice my age. He was a fisherman, whose wife had
died in giving birth to their only child, a strapping son, now five
years old.
"John was a lonely man, and beginning to feel the weight of his years.
I was a lonely girl, and to his mind innocent, full with the first
bloom of untainted womanhood. I was to be the empty page that he would
write upon, the flowering stream beside which he would rebuild his
life.
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