The Daughters of the Little Grey HouseTaggart, Marion Ames
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The Daughters of the Little Grey House
Taggart, Marion Ames
Families -- Juvenile fiction
"Yes. I imagine Oswyth Grey did that, for her lover could never have
sent her waxed flowers," said Wythie, lifting the sheet which had held
them for so long that Basil might replace them. "The letters grew more
frank and assured as they went on--some day we will read them. Then
there was one reproaching my little greatest aunt for her hardness of
heart, her cruelty after so long, and then a last one bidding her
farewell. It is quite pitiable. But this is the saddest thing of all."
And Oswyth unfolded the sheet which bore on its outer fold the initials
and the inscription that had lain on top of the packet of letters, like
their epitaph as well as Oswyth Grey's. "See, she wrote this letter to
him in reply to the reproach he had made her, knowing that he would
never see it; it was never sent. Read it."
Basil read it. It threw no light on the cause of the lovers' parting,
but it was a passionate protest against the distrust of her which her
lover had expressed to that Oswyth, and a revelation of devotion and
beauty of character that, after all the years, still palpitated with
life. Oswyth Grey, the little Puritan, would not have poured out her
soul thus had she not felt sure that no other eyes than her own would
ever rest upon that paper.
"What a pity!" murmured Basil, gently folding the unsent letter in its
brown creases again. His eyes were moist.
"She died not long after that the records show; he never knew. Isn't
it a pity?" Wythie's lashes hid her downcast eyes as she fingered the
papers absently. "I always felt that I ought to make it right to her,
because I bore her name. I can't explain just what I have felt about
her, though the feeling is strong. Yet the dear girl has been quite
happy for more than a century; I suppose we need not feel sad about her
now. Here is a stanza written to her, signed B. R. It isn't remarkable,
but it is enough to prove that her B. R. cared for poetry when many
were indifferent to it."
Wythie looked up, smiling to show that the moisture on those lashes
meant nothing, and offered Basil one more yellow page. He took it and
read:
_If there were other like to thee, my loved one,_
_Then might I love that other perfect she;_
_But since the world holds naught like thee, my loved one,_
_How can I choose but at thy feet to be?_
_For, save in this, thou hast no fault, my loved one,_
_That to my love thou prov'st thy obduracy._
Basil returned the verse without comment, and Wythie tied up again the
packet just as that other Wythie had tied it so long before. But with
the great difference that for this Wythie happiness just within reach
seemed to fill the shadowy attic.
"You didn't care for B. R's poetry?" she said, bending over to replace
the letters at the bottom of the chest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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