One evening, during my second week at the Brewsters’, I sat long at my chamber-window, watching the fading twilight, the growing moonlight, and the steady snow-light.  Presently I saw Rachel come out to take in the clothes.  It seemed just right that she should appear then, for in her face were all three,—­the shadowy twilight, the soft moonlight, and the white snow-light.

She wore a little shawl, crossed in front, and tied behind at the waist, and over her head a bright-colored blanket, just pinned under the chin.  This exposed her face, and while I watched it, as it showed front-view or profile, not knowing which I liked best, admiring, meanwhile, the grace with which she reached up, where the line was high, sometimes springing from the ground, I saw Sam approaching, very slowly and softly, from behind.  When quite near, watching his opportunity, he seized her by the waist.  He was going to kiss her.  I started up, as if to do something, but there was nothing to be done.  With a quick motion she slid from his grasp, stepped back, and looked him in the face.  Not a word fell from her lips, only her silence spoke.  “I despise you!  There is nothing in you that words can reach!” was the speech which I felt in my heart she was making, though her lips never moved.  Other things, too, I felt in my heart,—­rather perplexing, agitating, but still pleasing sensations, which I did not exactly feel like analyzing.  One of the children came out to take hold one side of the basket, and Sam walked away.

I went down soon after and look my favorite seat upon the settle, which was then in its own place by the fire.  The children were in bed, the older ones had gone to singing-school, and Mrs. Brewster was at an evening-meeting.  The Squire was at home with his rheumatism.

I liked a nice chat with the Squire.  He was a great reader, and delighted to draw me into long talks, political or theological.  My remarks on this particular evening would have been more brilliant, had not Rachel been sprinkling and folding clothes at the back of the room.  The Squire, in his roundabout, came exactly between us, so that, in looking up to answer his questions, I could not help seeing a white arm with the sleeve rolled above the elbow, could not help watching the drops of water, as she shook them from her fingers.  I wondered how it was, that, while working so hard, her hands should be so white.  My sister Fanny told me, long afterwards, that some girls always have white hands, no matter how hard they work.

This question interested me more than the political ones raised by the Squire, and I became aware that my answers were getting wild, by his eying me over his spectacles.  Rachel finished the clothes, and seated herself, with her knitting-work, at the opposite corner of the fireplace.  I changed to the other end of the settle:  sitting long in one position is tiresome.  She was knitting a gray woollen stocking.  I think she must have been “setting the heel,” for she kept counting the stitches.  I had often noticed Fanny doing the same thing, at this turning-point in the progress of a stocking; but then it never took her half as long.  After knitting so many feet of leg, though, any change must have been pleasant.