He packed them in, and whirled them away to the inn in spite of Julia
Cloud's protest that she was not tired and wanted to work; but, when
they came back at two o'clock, they all felt rested and fit for work
again.
"Now, I'm the man, and I'm going to boss for a while," said Allison.
"You two ladies go up-stairs, and make beds. Here, which are the
blankets and sheets? I'll take the bundles right up there, and you
won't have any running up and down to do. These? All of them? All
right. Now come on up, and I'll be undoing the rugs and boxes from
California. When you come down, they'll be all ready for you to say
where they shall go."
Leslie and her aunt laughingly complied, and had a beautiful time
unfolding and spreading the fine white sheets, plumping the new
pillows into their cases, laying the soft, gay-bordered blankets and
pretty white spreads, till each bed was fair and fit for a good
night's sleep. And then at the foot of each was plumped, in a puff
of beauty, the bright satin eiderdowns that Leslie had insisted
upon. Rose-color for Julia Cloud's, robin's-egg blue for Leslie's,
and orange and brown for Allison's, who had insisted upon mahogany
and quiet colors for his room. Leslie's furniture was ivory-white,
and Julia Cloud's room was furnished in French gray enamel, with
insets of fine cane-work. She stood a moment in the open doorway, and
looked about the place; soft gray walls, with a trellis of roses at
the top, filmy white draperies with a touch of rose, a gray couch
luxuriously upholstered, with many pillows, some rose, some gray, a
thick, gray rug under her feet, and her own little gray desk drawn out
conveniently when she wanted to write. Over all a flood of autumn
sunshine, and on the wall a great water-color of a marvellous sunset
that Leslie had insisted belonged in that room and must be bought or
the furnishing would not be complete.
It filled Julia Cloud's eyes with tears of wonder and gratitude to
think that such a princess's abode should have come to be her
abiding-place after her long years of barren living in dreary
surroundings. She lifted her eyes to the sunset picture on the wall,
and it reminded her of the evening when she had stood at her own home
window in her distress and sorrow, looking into the gray future, and
had watched it break into rose-color before her eyes. For just an
instant after Leslie had run down-stairs she closed her door, and
dropped upon her knees beside the lovely bed to thank her Lord for
this green and pleasant pasture where He had led her tired feet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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