"She isn't any old maid," he thought; "she doesn't step like one;
she has soft shoes and a springy walk. She must be a very
handsome woman, with a hand like that; and such a voice!
I knew the moment she spoke that she didn't belong in this village."
As a matter of fact, his keen ear had caught the melody in
Lyddy's voice, a voice full of dignity, sweetness, and reserve power.
His sense of touch, too, had captured the beauty of her hand,
and held it in remembrance,--the soft palm, the fine skin,
supple fingers, smooth nails, and firm round wrist.
These charms would never have been noted by any seeing
man in Edgewood, but they were revealed to Anthony Croft
while Lyddy, like the good Samaritan, bound up his wounds.
It is these saving stars that light the eternal darkness
of the blind.
Lyddy thought she had met her Waterloo when, with arms akimbo,
she gazed about the Croft establishment, which was a scene
of desolation for the moment. Anthony's cousin from
Bridgton was in the habit of visiting him every two months
for a solemn house-cleaning, and Mrs.
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