"I do' know nothin' about it. _I_ 'a'n't took it"; and the Gnome tosses
her head back defiantly. "I seen the lady when she was a-writin' of her
letter, and when she went out ther' wa'n't nothin' left on the table but
a hangkerchuf, and that wa'n't hern. I do' know nothin' about it, nor I
'a'n't seen nothin' of it."
Oh, no, my Gnome, you knew nothing of it; you did not take it. But since
no one accused you or even suspected you, why could you not have been
less aggressive and more sympathetic in your assertions? But we will
plough no longer in that field. The ploughshare has struck against a
rock and grits, denting its edge in vain. My veil is gone,--my ample,
historic, heroic veil. There is a woman in Fontdale who breathes air
filtered through--I will not say _stolen_ tissue, but certainly
through tissue which was obtained without rendering its owner any fair
equivalent. Does not every breeze that softly stirs its fluttering folds
say to her, "O friend, this veil is not yours, not yours," and still
sighingly, "not yours! Up among the northern hills, yonder towards the
sunset, sits the owner, sorrowful, weeping, wailing"? I believe I am
wading out into the Sally Waters of Mother Goosery; but, prose
or poetry, somewhere a woman,--and because nobody of taste could
surreptitiously possess herself of my veil, I have no doubt that she cut
it incontinently into two equal parts, and gave one to her sister, and
that there are two women,--nay, since niggardly souls have no sense of
grandeur and will shave down to microscopic dimensions, it is every way
probable that she divided it into three unequal parts, and took three
quarters of a yard for herself, three quarters for her sister, and gave
the remaining half-yard to her daughter, and that at this very moment
there are two women and a little girl taking their walks abroad under
the silken shadows of my veil! And yet there are people who profess to
disbelieve in total depravity.
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