Her smile lay near the surface. A kind word
was enough to draw it up from the well where it lay shimmering: you could
always see the smile there, whether it was born or not. But even when she
smiled, in the very glimmering of that moonbeam, you could see the deep,
still, perhaps dark, waters under. O! if one could but understand what
goes on in the souls that have no words, perhaps no inclination, to set it
forth! What had she endured? How had she learned to have that smile always
near? What had consoled her, and yet left her her grief--turned it,
perhaps, into hope? Should I ever know?
She drew near me, as if she would have passed me, as she would have done,
had I not spoken. I think she came towards me to give me the opportunity of
speaking if I wished, but she would not address me.
"Good morning," I said. "Can you tell me where to find the sexton?"
"Well, sir," she answered, with a gleam of the smile brightening underneath
her old skin, as it were, "I be all the sexton you be likely to find this
mornin', sir. My husband, he be gone out to see one o' Squire Tregarva's
hounds as was took ill last night. So if you want to see the old church,
sir, you'll have to be content with an old woman to show you, sir.
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