A Little Girl of Long Ago by Amanda Minnie Douglas (interesting novels in english TXT) 📕

that set one at ease.

At the side was a long porch with curtains that rolled up when they were not needed for shade. At the front of the garden, there was considerable young shrubbery, then an arrangement of beds; the centre one, which was a circle, was filled with the most beautiful roses. The middle was raised somewhat, mound shape, with the dark red roses, then growing a little paler to pure rose-colour and pink, tea-rose with the salmon tint, and a border of white. And, oh, how fragrant!

Beside this bed there were others in clusters, and one clump in an exquisite yellow.

"Some of them have been great travellers," said Mrs. French. "There are roses from Spain, from France and Italy."

Hanny opened her eyes very wide, and then she looked at them again in surprise.

"Oh, how could you get them?" she asked.

"I brought them from their homes. You see I have been quite a traveller, also."

The child drew a long breath. "Did you go with Captain French?" she inquired.

"Yes. When we were first married, his vessel traded in the Levant, and brought back fruits and silks and shawls and nuts, and ever so many things. After that we went to India, Calcutta. We took one of my sisters, and she married an English merchant, and has been home only once since then."

"Oh, I shouldn't like Margaret to live in Calcutta," the little girl said, startled.

Mrs. French smiled. "Then we were away almost four years. We went to the Chinese ports as well, and to some of the curious islands. We took a cargo of tea to London."

"I know a little girl who has just gone to London, and who is to go on to Germany to take some special kind of baths. She is my very dear friend."

"Is she ill?"

"She is a great deal better now. When we first knew her, she couldn't walk but a few steps. She was in the hospital where my brother used to go when he was first a doctor. Then she came to live in our street."

"With her parents?"

"Oh, yes. She has one aunt, but no brothers or sisters. It must seem strange not to have any," and Hanny glanced up.

"It would be strange to me. I had ten in all, and there is only one dead. Eugene is the oldest of the second family. One married brother lives in Baltimore, one only a short distance from here. And you have six brothers,--a good supply for one little girl."

"I suppose some of them belong to Margaret," and she gave a soft, rippling laugh. "We haven't ever divided them up. But Joe belongs to me. When I get to be a woman, and he has a good big practice, I am going to keep house for him."

"But what will your father do?"

"Why--" Hanny had not considered that point. "Oh, it won't be in a long while! And then father will be old, and he will come and live with us, I think. Dolly says she is going to have mother."

Mrs. French thought the division rather amusing.

"Where is Captain French gone now?"

"To China again. He has been going back and forth to Liverpool; but he had an excellent offer for the long trip. I concluded not to go, grandpa was so old and feeble. And my sister is coming to England to live. Her husband is heir now to a fine estate and a title; and they have quite a family of children."

"Then you will want to go to England to see her," said Hanny.

"Indeed, I shall. I have not seen her in seven years; since the time she was here."

"We all liked Mr. Eugene so much," Hanny remarked. "And Luella has grown so, I hardly knew her."

"They have a trick of growing up. I hope you won't be in any hurry."

"I am small of my age," and Hanny gave a soft sigh.

"It will take you a long time to get as large as your mother."

Hanny wasn't sure that she wanted to be quite so large. Yet she didn't really want her mother changed. And, oh, she wouldn't have her as thin as Mrs. Reed for all the world!

They had been walking around the paths that were clean and solid as a floor. What beautiful plants and flowers there were! Strange things, too, that Hanny had never seen before. Then the tea-bell rang, and they came up to the rose garden, where Mrs. French broke off several partly opened buds and pinned them on the little girl's bodice.

The dining-room windows opened on the porch, and they walked in that way. It had a great beaufet with carved shelves and brackets going nearly up to the ceiling, and full of the most curious articles Hanny had ever seen. Then there was a cabinet in the corner containing rare and beautiful china. The table was small and dainty, oval, with a vase of flowers at the ends; and the two sat opposite each other, while a tidy young coloured girl waited upon them.

Hanny felt as if she was part of a story; and she tried to recall several of her heroines who went visiting in some curiously elegant house. It was different from the Jaspers, from anything she had ever seen, and there was a subtle fragrance about it that made her feel dreamy.


CHAPTER VIII

GOING VISITING

"Don't you want to tell me about your little friend?" Mrs. French said when she had put Hanny in the hammock, and hedged her about with silken cushions. She sat in a willow rocker that Hanny thought quite as fascinating as the hammock.

"Oh, yes," and Hanny smiled brightly, and, like a true biographer began at the beginning, the first time the children had seen Daisy, with her long golden curls and pallid face, like a snow-drift. And how Doctor Joe had been in the hospital when she had the operation performed.

"Poor little thing!" exclaimed Mrs. French. "And now there is something they can use that gives a blessed unconsciousness, and when you wake up the worst of the pain is over. I do not know how any one could endure such torture."

"Joe said she was very brave, though she fainted several times. And she's growing straight and tall, and her hair curls lovely again. I have always wished my hair curled naturally. It just twists a little at the ends, but won't make ringlets."

People in those days curled their hair a great deal; but they had to put it in papers. Patent curlers, like a great many other things, had not been invented. When you wanted to be very fine, you went to the hair-dresser's. The real society ladies had some one come to the house to "do" their hair; and sometimes it was very elaborate.

Mrs. French thought curly hair would not improve the little girl. There was something charming in her very simplicity, and her hair was like floss silk.

As she told about Daisy she detailed bits of neighbourhood life, and descriptions of the other children. Mrs. French heard about John Robert Charles and his mother.

"But she's so different now. She is not real strong any more; and then Charles is such a big boy, and goes out with his father. It's queer, but Jim and he are great friends, and Jim goes over there to study with Charles. Mrs. Reed did not use to like boys; and Jim is so full of fun and pranks, mother calls them, and he knows so many funny stories! Mother tries very hard not to laugh at them; but she can't always help it."

The evening passed so quickly that it was bed-time before either of them realised it. Mrs. French took the large square pillows off the bed, and laid one of the silken spreads over the footboard. How beautiful and soft they were, with great flowers so natural it seemed as if you could pick them up! And the fragrance was so delicate and puzzling: one moment you thought it violets, then it suggested roses and lilies and the smell of newly cut grass.

Mrs. French kissed her, and said if she felt strange in the night to call her; but she was asleep in five minutes, and never woke until quite in the morning, it was so much more quiet than in First Street.

When she did sit up in the bed and glance around, she had a queer feeling that she was a part of a fairy story, like the white cat in her enchanted palace, waiting for the Prince, or perhaps Psyche, blown from the hill-top to her beautiful place of refuge, where she found and lost Love, and had to do many hard tasks before she could regain him.

She was quite sure, an hour or two later, that she _was_ in some enchanted realm. There were such queer things,--some beautiful, and some she thought very ugly, especially the grotesque idols.

"I couldn't believe a god like that had any power. And I am sure I couldn't worship him," Hanny said emphatically.

"They beat their gods sometimes and break them to pieces, and go off and get new ones. It seems very singular to us."

The little girl had been deeply interested in Judson, the missionary to Burmah. There had been a good deal of romance about his last marriage, to "Fanny Forester," who wrote tales and sketches and poems, and had made herself quite a name for brightness and gay humour, and then had surprised her friends by going to India as a missionary's wife. And she knew Bishop Heber's beautiful poem to his wife all by heart, and often sang "From Greenland's icy mountains." So she had a feeling that she did know something about India.

But Mrs. French had really been there, and spent two months at Bombay, and almost six months at Calcutta. There were so many gorgeous things,--silks, and bright stuffs with threads of gold, jackets all embroidery, and queer Eastern dresses, two made of pineapple cloth,--a sheer, beautiful fabric,--and one had delicate flowers embroidered in silk.

But the oddest of all, Hanny thought, was burning incense. Mrs. French had several curious incense bowls and jars. She lighted one, and in a little while the room was filled with an indescribable fragrance and a hazy purplish air.

"They burn incense in the Roman Catholic churches. Joe took us one Easter Sunday. It was very strange, I thought. And a little boy swung the--something--"

"Censer."

"Oh, yes, censer. And the singing was beautiful. But we couldn't understand the prayers; Joe said they were Latin. I suppose he could follow them."

"No doubt; I have attended some very grand services in churches abroad and in England."

The incense burned out presently, and they went downstairs to dinner. Afterward, a niece and nephew, her brother's children, came. The girl was not quite twelve, but most a head taller than Hanny, who felt rather shy with her. The boy was older still, and his name was Harold, which suggested to Hanny the last of the Saxon kings. But he was very dark, and didn't look like a Saxon, she thought.

Mrs. French sent to the livery and ordered a carriage, and they all went to drive. Hanny was quite conversant with upper New York and Westchester County; but she had only been once to Brooklyn. It had quite a country aspect then; but there were beautiful drives, and