Haven't you seen girls of four-and-twenty who have nibbled and been
nibbled at ever since they were sixteen, but who have neither caught
anything nor been caught? They are old, if you like, but Lyddy was
forty and still young, with her susceptibilities cherished, not dulled,
and with all the "language of passion fresh and rooted as the lovely
leafage about a spring."
IV.
"He shall daily joy dispense
Hid in song's sweet influence."
Emerson's _Merlin._
Lyddy had very few callers during her first month
as a property owner in Edgewood. Her appearance would
have been against her winning friends easily in any case,
even if she had not acquired the habits of a recluse.
It took a certain amount of time, too, for the community
to get used to the fact that old Mrs. Butterfield was dead,
and her niece Lyddy Ann living in the cottage on the river road.
There were numbers of people who had not yet heard that old
Mrs. Butterfield had bought the house from the Thatcher boys,
and that was fifteen years ago; but this was not strange, for,
notwithstanding aunt Hitty's valuable services in disseminating
general information, there was a man living on the Bonny Eagle
road who was surprised to hear that Daniel Webster was dead,
and complained that folks were not so long-lived as they
used to be.
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