Chapter 10 - Lizzie Leigh

I think they believed her to be crazy, but she never spoke first to anyone. She sometimes took a few minutes rest on the doorsteps, and sometimes, very seldom, covered her face and cried. But she could not afford to lose time and chances in this way. While her eyes were blinded with tears, the lost one might pass by unseen. One evening in the rich time of shortening autumn days, Will saw an old man, who without being absolutely drunk, could not guide himself rightly along the footpath, and was mocked for his unsteadiness of gait by the idle boys of the neighbourhood. For his father's sake, Will regarded old age with tenderness, even when most degraded and removed from the stern virtues which dignified that father. So he took the old man home, and seemed to believe his often repeated assertions that he drank nothing but water. The stranger tried to stiffen himself up into steadiness as he drew nearer home, as if there was someone there for whose respect he cared, even in his half-intoxicated state, or whose feelings he feared to grieve. His home was exquisitely clean and neat, even in outside appearance. Threshold window and windowsill were outward signs of some spirit of purity within. Will was rewarded for his attention by a bright glance of thanks, succeeded by a blush of shame from a young woman of twenty or thereabouts. She did not speak, or second her father's hospitable invitations to him to be seated. She seemed unwilling that a stranger should witness her father's attempts at stately sobriety, and Will could not bear to stay and see her distress. But when the old man, with many a flabby shake of the hand, kept asking him to come again some other evening and see them, Will sought her downcast eyes, and though he could not read their veiled meaning, he answered timidly, If it's agreeable to everybody, I'll come and thank ye. But there was no answer from the girl to whom this speech was in reality addressed, and Will left the house liking her, all the better for never speaking.