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The Pedler of Dust Sticks by Eliza Lee Cabot Follen
page 38 of 45 (84%)
I see a venerable-looking old lady who from infirmity is obliged to
walk very slowly. She is supported by a bright, rosy-cheeked girl
who holds up the umbrella, and keeps back her light and joyous step
to the slow time of her aged companion.

An elegant-looking woman is leading, with great care and tenderness,
a little girl through the mud. The lady puts her umbrella so low
that the rain is kept from the child, but it falls upon her own gay
clothes. The little girl must be that lady's daughter. But see! they
stop at the door of yonder miserable-looking house. The lady cannot
live there, surely. She gives the child a little book. The little
girl enters alone. I see her now in the house. She is the daughter
of the poor, sick woman who lives there.

There is a trembling old man tottering along: he looks a little like
Tipsy David, as the boys call him; but he has on a clean and
respectable suit of black, and a weed on his hat; he is quite sober,
but it is David; and one of the very boys that have laughed at and
abused him when intoxicated, now respectfully offers him an
umbrella.

A fashionable young man is gallanting a lady with the greatest care
and most delicate respect; she must be his sister, or the lady he is
engaged to marry, he is so careful to shelter her from every drop of
rain. No, I see her enter her door; it is my good neighbor, Miss--;
she is one of the excellent of the earth, but she is poor, old and
forsaken by all but the few who seek for those whom others forget.
She has no beauty, no celebrity; there is no eclat in noticing her;
there are those who will even laugh at him for his attention to her.

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