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148
The Country of the Pointed Firs
·
Sarah Orne Jewett
63
You
may
speak
of
a
visit's
setting
in
as
well
as
a
tide's,
and
it
was
impossible,
as
Mrs.
Todd
whispered
to
me,
not
to
be
pleased
at
the
way
this
visit
was
setting
in;
a
new
impulse
and
refreshing
of
the
social
currents
and
seldom
visited
bays
of
memory
appeared
to
have
begun.
Mrs.
Fosdick
had
been
the
mother
of
a
large
family
of
sons
and
daughters,--sailors
and
sailors'
wives,--and
most
of
them
had
died
before
her.
I
soon
grew
more
or
less
acquainted
with
the
histories
of
all
their
fortunes
and
misfortunes,
and
subjects
of
an
intimate
nature
were
no
more
withheld
from
my
ears
than
if
I
had
been
a
shell
on
the
mantelpiece.
Mrs.
Fosdick
was
not
without
a
touch
of
dignity
and
elegance;
she
was
fashionable
in
her
dress,
but
it
was
a
curiously
well-preserved
provincial
fashion
of
some
years
back.
In
a
wider
sphere
one
might
have
called
her
a
woman
of
the
world,
with
her
unexpected
bits
of
modern
knowledge,
but
Mrs.
Todd's
wisdom
was
an
intimation
of
truth
itself.
She
might
belong
to
any
age,
like
an
idyl
of
Theocritus;
but
while
she
always
understood
Mrs.
Fosdick,
that
entertaining
pilgrim
could
not
always
understand
Mrs.
Todd.
That
very
first
evening
my
friends
plunged
into
a
borderless
sea
of
reminiscences
and
personal
news.
Mrs.
Fosdick
had
been
staying
with
a
family
who
owned
the
farm
where
she
was
born,
and
she
had
visited
every
sunny
knoll
and
shady
field
corner;
but
when
she
said
that
it
might
be
for
the
last
time,
I
detected
in
her
tone
something
expectant
of
the
contradiction
which
Mrs.
Todd
promptly
offered.
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