It wuz Maud Muller. As I looked on Maud, I thought I could say with the Judge, when he first had a idee of payin' attention to her--
"A sweeter face I ne'er have seen." And I thought, too, I could read in Maud's face a sort of a sad look, as if the shadder Pride, and Fate, held above her, wuz sort o' shadin' her now. Miss Blanche Nevins done first rate, and I'd loved to told her so.
And then there wuz a statute of Elaine that rousted up about every emotion I had by me.
There she wuz, "Elaine the fair," the lovable, the lily maid of Astolot.
I always thought a sight of her, and I've shed many a tear over her ontimely lot. I knew she thought more of Mr. Lancelot than she'd ort to, specially he bein' in love with a married woman at the same time.
Her face looked noble, and yet sweet, riz up jest as it must have been when she argued with her pa about the man she loved.
"Never yet was noble man, but made ignoble talk; He makes no friends who never made a foe."
And down under the majesty of her mean wuz the tenderness and pathos of her own little song; for, as Alfred Tennyson said, and said well, "Sweetly could she make, and sing."
"Sweet is true love, though given in vain, in vain; And sweet is Death, who puts an end to pain. I know not which is sweeter--no, not I."
There wuzn't hardly a dry eye in my head as I stood a-lookin' at Elaine.
And jest at this wropped moment I heard some voices nigh me that I recognized a-sayin' in glad and joyous axents, "How do you do, Josiah Allen's Wife?"
I turned and met seven glad extended hands, and thirteen eyes lookin' at mine, in joyous welcome, besides one glass eye (and you couldn't tell the difference, it wuz so nateral--Oren bought the best one money could git when his nigh eye wuz put out by a steer gorin' it). Yes, it wuz Oren Rumble and Lateza, his wife, and the hull of the family--the five girls, Barthena, Calfurna, Dalphina, Albiny, and Lateza.
But what a change had swep' over the family sence I had last looked on 'em!
I could hardly believe my two eyes when I looked at their costooms, for the hull family had dressed in black for upwards of 'leven years, and Jonesvillians had got jest as ust to seein' 'em as they wuz a-seein' a flock of crows in the spring.