She was a wiry woman, a mass of
muscles animated by an eager energy. Her very hands seemed knotted with
clenching themselves in nervous spasms. Her eyes were black, seeking,
and passionate, and her face had been scored by fine wrinkles, the
marks of anxiety and grief. Her chocolate calico was very clean, and
her palm-leaf shawl and black bonnet were decent in their poverty. The
vague excitement created by her coming continued in a rustling like
that of leaves. The troubles of Hannah Prime's life had been very
bitter--so bitter that she had, as Deacon Pitts once said, after
undertaking her conversion, turned from "me and the house of God." A
quickening thought sprang up now in the little assembly that she was
"under conviction," and that it had become the present duty of every
professor to lead her to the throne of grace. This was an exigency for
which none were prepared. At so strenuous a challenge, the old
conventional ways of speech fell down and collapsed before them, like
creatures filled with air. Who should minister to one set outside their
own comfortable lives by bitter sorrow and wounded pride? What could
they offer a woman who had, in one way or another, sworn to curse God
and die? It was Deacon Pitts who spoke, but in a tone hushed to the key
of the unexpected.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219