Agatha Webb by Anna Katharine Green Read Free Book Online

wonder if she would have worshipped the ground under your feet,
as she did that under Agatha's?" asked the deacon, eying his wife
with just the suspicion of a malicious twinkle in his eye.
    "I am not the greatest-hearted and most capable woman in town,"
retorted his wife, clicking her needles as she went on knitting.
    In Mr. Sprague's house on the opposite side of the road, Squire
Fisher was relating some old tales of bygone Portchester days. "I
knew Agatha when she was a girl," he avowed. "She had the grandest
manners and the most enchanting smile of any rich or poor man's
daughter between the coast and Springfield. She did not dress in
calico then. She wore the gayest clothes her father could buy.
her, and old Jacob was not without means to make his daughter the
leading figure in town. How we young fellows did adore her, and
what lengths we went to win one of her glorious smiles! Two of us,
John and James Zabel, have lived bachelors for her sake to this
very day; but I hadn't courage enough for that; I married and"—
something between a sigh and a chuckle filled out the sentence.
    "What made Philemon carry off the prize? His good looks?"
    "Yes, or his good luck. It wasn't his snap; of that you may be
sure. James Zabel had the snap, and he was her first choice, too,
but he got into some difficulty—I never knew just what it was,
but it was regarded as serious at the time—and that match was
broken off. Afterwards she married Philemon. You see, I was out of
it altogether; had never been in it, perhaps; but there were three
good years of my life in which I thought of little else than
Agatha. I admired her spirit, you see. There was something more
taking in her ways than in her beauty, wonderful as that was. She
ruled us with a rod of iron, and yet we worshipped her. I have
wondered to see her so meek of late. I never thought she would be
satisfied with a brick-floored cottage and a husband of failing
wits. But no one, to my knowledge, has ever heard a complaint from
her lips; and the dignity of her afflicted wife-hood has far
transcended the haughtiness of those days when she had but to
smile to have all the youth of Portchester at her feet."
    "I suppose it was the loss of so many children that reconciled her
to a quiet life. A woman cannot close the eyes of six children,
one after the other, without some modification taking place in her
character."
    "Yes, she and Philemon have been unfortunate; but she was a
splendid looking girl, boys. I never see such grand-looking women
now."
    In a little one-storied cottage on the hillside a woman was
nursing a baby and talking at the same time of Agatha Webb.
    "I shall never forget the night my first baby fell sick," she
faltered; "I was just out of bed myself, and having no nearer
neighbours then than now, I was all alone on the hillside, Alec
being away at sea. I was too young to know much about sickness,
but something told me that I must have help before morning or my
baby would die. Though I could just walk across the floor, I threw
a shawl around me, took my baby in my arms, and opened the door. A
blinding gust of rain blew in. A terrible storm was raging and I
had not noticed it, I was so taken up with the child.
    "I could not face that gale. Indeed, I was so weak I fell on my
knees as it struck me and became dripping wet before I could drag
myself inside. The baby began to moan and everything was turning
dark before me, when I heard a strong, sweet voice cry out in the
roadway:
    "'Is there room in this house for me till the storm has blown by?
I cannot see my way down the hillside.'
    "With a bursting heart I looked up. A woman was standing in the
doorway, with the look of an angel in her eyes. I did not know
her, but her face was one to bring comfort to the saddest heart.
Holding up my baby, I cried:
    "'My baby is dying; I tried to go for the doctor, but my knees
bent under me. Help me, as you are a mother—I—'
    "I must have fallen again, for the next thing I remember I