The Flower of the Flock, Volume 2 (of 3)Egan, Pierce
General
The Flower of the Flock, Volume 2 (of 3)
Egan, Pierce
Fiction
Her furniture was all her own, too, now; to the kind liberality of Flora
Wilton she was indebted for that, and she had, at least, a sovereign
by her for an emergency. She had begun to deposit in a Savings Bank
already. She had a plan daintily conceived, which involved a fair amount
of poetical justice. She had indomitable perseverance, and, if events
unforeseen and uncontrollable did not occur, she fully resolved to
carry it out. Her room--her one room, for she had only one--was a little
picture, so clean, so tidy, so prettily arranged it was. There was
her table with its two flaps, so that if she felt lonely and somewhat
disposed to turn with liberal hand her economy aside it would
accommodate a visitor--ay, actually company.
Then, in addition to her neat set of chairs, there was a sofa, which,
by a marvel of mechanical ingenuity was converted at night into a pretty
little bedstead. There was upon the floor a neat-patterned carpet. Upon
the flowered walls a picture or two, not of much value, but they added
to the liveliness of the room.
She had, too, a charming little canary, such a dear tiltle “dick,” which
chirruped and sang to her all the long day, looking at her every now and
then, and calling “sweet” to her with as knowing an expression in his
little bright eye, as if he were that young smart though anky grocer
himself round the corner, who never served her with sugar but he gazed
upon her as if, like the genuine “barley,” he was a “sweetness long
drawn out.”
There were flowers in the window. She was very fond of flowers. She
could not afford the more expensive kinds, but as it was, she delighted
in tending her geraniums, her mignionette, her fuchsias, and her trained
convolvuli.
Altogether, in her eyes, her room was an earthly Paradise. She almost
sighed with too much happiness as at times she lifted up her eyes from
her work to gaze around.
“Oh, if Charley could only see me here, how happy he would be!” she
would often say to herself; and then she would pray with earnest fervour
that he might soon be restored to her.
As yet she had not had a visitor. Flora was away in the country. Hal
Vivian she had expected to call, if only to say, “How do you do?” but he
had never been, and Mrs. Bantom--who had promised to return the visit,
which Lotte, full of gratitude and thankfulness to her for her motherly
kindness in her distress, had paid--had not yet put in an appearance.
Several times when a loud ring came to “her” bell, she ran with a light
step and a beating heart down the stairs to answer the door, expecting
to see some loved face reward her hopeful anticipations, but it was only
“the milk,” or a boy to bring her a fresh supply of work, and take away
that which she had done. She would return up to her room with just a
little bit of a sigh, and take refuge once more in the sanguine belief
that some one would come to see her, and that before long.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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