Barnabas saw little of other people, and nobody dared repeat the
whisper to him, and they had too much mercy or too little courage to
repeat it to Caleb or Deborah. Indeed, it is doubtful if any woman in
the village, even Hannah Berry, would have ventured to face Deborah
Thayer with this rumor concerning her daughter.
Deborah had of late felt anxious about Rebecca, who did not seem like
herself. Her face was strangely changed; all the old meaning had gone
out of it, and given place to another, which her mother could not
interpret. Sometimes Rebecca looked like a stranger to her as she
moved about the house. She said to many that Rebecca was miserable,
and was incensed that she got so little sympathy in response. Once
when Rebecca fainted in meeting, and had to be carried out, she felt
in the midst of her alarm a certain triumph. "I guess folks will see
now that I ain't been fussin' over her for nothin'," she thought.
When Rebecca revived under a sprinkle of water, out in the vestibule,
she said impatiently to the other women bending their grave,
concerned faces over her, "She's been miserable for some time. I
ain't surprised at this at all myself."
Deborah watched over Rebecca with a fierce, pecking tenderness like a
bird. She brewed great bowls of domestic medicines from nuts and
herbs, and made her drink whether she would or not.
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