One evening, after school, the young folks stopped to slide down-hill.  Rachel and a few little girls stood awhile, watching the sleds go by; but it was cold standing still, and they soon moved homewards.  I walked along by the side of Rachel:  this was the first time I ever went home with her.  I found she was living in the family of Squire Brewster, a family in which I had not yet boarded.  After this I frequently walked home with her.  Sometimes I would determine not to do so again, for I was afraid I was getting—­I didn’t know where, but where I had never been before; but when evening came, and I saw how handsome she looked, and how all alone, I couldn’t help it.  It was not often I could get her to talk much.  She was bashful, different from any girl I had ever met.  The only friend she seemed to have was the young wife of the Doctor, Mrs. James.  The Doctor, she said, had attended her through a fever, and asked no pay.  His wife was kind, and lent her books to read.

I was boarding at that time with a poor widow-woman, and one night I asked her about Rachel.  She warmed up immediately, said Rachel Lowe was a good girl and ought to be “sot by,” and not slighted on her parents’ account.

“And who were her parents?” I asked.

“Why, when her father was a poor boy, the Squire thought he would take him and bring him up to learnin’; but when he came to be a man grown almost, he ran away to sea; and long afterwards we heard of his marryin’ some outlandish girl, half English, half French,—­but Rachel’s no worse for that.  After his wife died,—­and, as far as I can find out, the way he carried on was what killed her,—­he started to bring Rachel here; but he died on the passage, and she came with only a letter.  I suppose he thought the ones that had been kind to him would be kind to her; but, you see, the Squire is a-livin’ with his second wife, and she isn’t the woman the first Miss Brewster was.  In time folks will come round, but now they sort of look down upon her; for, you see, everybody knows who her father was, and how he didn’t do any credit to his bringin’ up, and nobody knows who her mother was, only that she was a furrener, which was so much agin her.  But you are goin’ right from here to the Squire’s; and mebby, if you make of her, and let folks see that you set store by her, they’ll begin to open their eyes.”

I thought I felt just like kissing the poor widow; anyway, I knew I felt like kissing somebody.  To be sure, the talk was all about Rachel, and it might—­But no matter; what difference does it make now who it was I wanted to kiss forty or fifty years ago?