Evelinas Garden | Page 6

of complexion, which he could have gotten directly from
neither father nor mother; and whence came that little nervous frown
between his dark blue eyes? His mother had blue eyes, but not like his;
they flashed over the great pulpit Bible with a sweet fire that matched
the memory in his father's heart.
But the old man put the fancy away from him in a minute; it was one
which his stern common-sense always overcame. It was impossible that

Thomas Merriam should resemble Evelina Adams; indeed, people
always called him the very image of his father.
The father tried to fix his mind upon his son's sermon, but presently he
glanced involuntarily across the meeting-house at the young girl, and
again his heart leaped and his face paled; but he turned his eyes gravely
back to the pulpit, and his wife did not notice. Now and then she thrust
a sharp elbow in his side to call his attention to a grand point in their
son's discourse. The odor of peppermint was strong in his nostrils, but
through it all he seemed to perceive the rose and lavender scent of
Evelina Adams's youthful garments. Whether it was with him simply
the memory of an odor, which affected him like the odor itself, or not,
those in the vicinity of the Squire's pew were plainly aware of it. The
gown which the strange young girl wore was, as many an old woman
discovered to her neighbor with loud whispers, one of Evelina's, which
had been laid away in a sweet-smelling chest since her old girlhood. It
had been somewhat altered to suit the fashion of a later day, but the
eyes which had fastened keenly upon it when Evelina first wore it up
the meeting-house aisle could not mistake it. "It's Evelina Adams's
lavender satin made over," one whispered, with a sharp hiss of breath,
in the other's ear.
The lavender satin, deepening into purple in the folds, swept in a rich
circle over the knees of the young girl in the Squire's pew. She folded
her little hands, which were encased in Evelina's cream-colored silk
mitts, over it, and looked up at the young minister, and listened to his
sermon with a grave and innocent dignity, as Evelina had done before
her. Perhaps the resemblance between this young girl and the young
girl of the past was more one of mien than aught else, although the type
of face was the same. This girl had the same fine sharpness of feature
and delicately bright color, and she also wore her hair in curls, although
they were tied back from her face with a black velvet ribbon, and did
not veil it when she drooped her head, as Evelina's used to do.
The people divided their attention between her and the new minister.
Their curiosity goaded them in equal measure with their spiritual zeal.
"I can't wait to find out who that girl is," one woman whispered to

another.
The girl herself had no thought of the commotion which she awakened.
When the service was over, and she walked with a gentle maiden
stateliness, which seemed a very copy of Evelina's own, out of the
meeting-house, down the street to the Squire's house, and entered it,
passing under the stately Corinthian pillars, with a last purple gleam of
her satin skirts, she never dreamed of the eager attention that followed
her.
It was several days before the village people discovered who she was.
The information had to be obtained, by a process like mental
thumb-screwing, from the old man who tended Evelina's garden, but at
last they knew. She was the daughter of a cousin of Evelina's on the
father's side. Her name was Evelina Leonard; she had been named for
her father's cousin. She had been finely brought up, and had attended a
Boston school for young ladies. Her mother had been dead many years,
and her father had died some two years ago, leaving her with only a
very little money, which was now all gone, and Evelina Adams had
invited her to live with her. Evelina Adams had herself told the old
gardener, seeing his scant curiosity was somewhat awakened by the
sight of the strange young lady in the garden, but he seemed to have
almost forgotten it when the people questioned him.
"She'll leave her all her money, most likely," they said, and they looked
at this new Evelina in the old Evelina's perfumed gowns with awe.
However, in the space of a few months the opinion upon this matter
was divided. Another cousin of Evelina Adams's came to town, and this
time an own cousin--a widow in fine black bombazine, portly and
florid, walking with a majestic swell, and, moreover, having with her
two daughters, girls of