"My dear, dear, dear good friend! you don't know how glad I shall
be, if you will let me do as you say, and tell me what to do, and
scold me, and admonish and warn me! Oh, it will be such happiness to
have somebody to tell all my _real_ secrets and troubles to! I do
so need such a friend sometimes!"
"Don't I know it, you poor dear?" said Miss Blake, wiping her
eyes. "Ha'n't I been through the same straits myself? None but them
that's been a young gal themselves, an orphan without a mother to
confide in and to warn and guide 'em, knows what it is. But I do, my
dear; and though I shall be a pretty poor substitute for an own
mother, I'll do the best I can."
"Tira," said Laura, with a tearful and blushing cheek held up to the
good spinster's, "kiss me, won't you?--you never have."
"My dear," said Miss Blake, preparing to comply with this request by
wiping her lips with her apron, "you see I a'n't one of the kissin'
sort, and I scurcely ever kiss a grown-up person; but here's my hand,
and here's a kiss,"--with an old-fashioned smack that might have been
heard in the next room,--"for a token that you may always come to me
as freely as if I was your mother, relyin' upon my givin' you my
honest advice and opinion concernin' any affair that you may ask for
counsel upon.
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