Then he would see, as
Evelina, the poor, worn, humble face of his home, and his heart would
sink. "I don't see how I ever can bring her here," he thought. He
began to save, a few cents at a time, out of his pitiful salary, to
at least beautify his own chamber a little when Evelina should come.
He made up his mind that she should have a little dressing-table,
with an oval mirror, and a white muslin frill around it, like one he
had seen in Boston. "She shall have that to sit before while she
combs her hair," he thought, with defiant tenderness, when he stowed
away another shilling in a little box in his trunk. It was money
which he ordinarily bestowed upon foreign missions; but his Evelina
had come between him and the heathen. To procure some dainty
furnishings for her bridal-chamber he took away a good half of his
tithes for the spread of the gospel in the dark lands. Now and then
his conscience smote him, he felt shamefaced before his deacons, but
Evelina kept her first claim. He resolved that another year he would
hire a piece of land, and combine farming with his ministerial work,
and so try to eke out his salary, and get a little more money to
beautify his poor home for his bride.
Now if Evelina Adams had come to the appointed time for the closing
of her solitary life, and if her young cousin should inherit a share
of her goodly property and the fine old mansion-house, all necessity
for anxiety of this kind was over.
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