The parlour really looked very nice when I had finished;
the new cream-coloured curtains were up, and I had
tied them back with amber silk; two or three sunny
little landscapes, and Charlie’s portrait, a
beautifully-painted photograph, hung on the walls;
my favourite books were in their places, and the mantelpiece
and the corner cupboards held some of the lovely old
china that had belonged to mother. Aunt Philippa
had wished me to leave it behind, as she feared it
might be broken; but I liked to feast my eyes on the
soft rich colours, and every piece was precious to
me.
When I had disposed the furniture to the best advantage,—had
placed my davenport and work-table and special chair
in the bow-window, and had replaced the shabby red
cloth by a handsome tapestry one,—I called
Mrs. Barton to see the room.
She held up her hands in astonishment.
’Dear me, Miss Garston, it looks quite a different
place. What will Nathaniel say when he sees it?—he
is so fond of books and pretty things. It only
wants sunshine and a bird-cage, and perhaps a geranium
or two, to make it quite a bower. May I make
so bold, ma’am, as to ask who that pleasant-faced
young gentleman is in the oak frame?’—but
I think she was sorry that she had asked the question
when I told her it was my twin-brother, now in heaven.
‘That is where my husband and my dear little
daughter both are,’ she said, with moist eyes,
as she turned away from the picture. ’Oh,
there is a deal of trouble in the world, but you are
young to know it, ma’am.’ And then
she looked kindly at me, and went away, to give Nathaniel
his dinner.
GILES HAMILTON, ESQ.
It was quite late in the afternoon when I put the
last finishing-touches to my sitting-room, and it
was already dusk when I left the cottage and walked
quickly up the road that led to the vicarage.
My busy day had not tired me, and I should have enjoyed
a solitary ramble in spite of the wet roads and dark
November sky, only I knew Uncle Max would be waiting
for me. A keen sense of independence, of liberty,
of congenial work in prospective, seemed to tingle
in my veins, as though new life were coursing through
them. I was no longer trammelled by the constant
efforts to move in other people’s grooves.
I was free to think my own thought and lead my own
life without reproof or hindrance.
The vicarage was a red, irregular house, shut off
from the road by a low wall, with a court-yard planted
somewhat thickly with shrubs: the living-rooms
were chiefly at the back of the house, and their windows
looked out on a pleasant garden: a glass door
in the hall opened on a broad gravel terrace bordered
by standard rose-trees, and beyond lay a smooth green
lawn almost as level as a bowling-green; a laurel hedge
divided it from an extensive kitchen-garden, to which
Uncle Max and Mr. Tudor devoted a great deal of their
spare time and superfluous energies.
