WaynfleteColeridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
General
Waynflete
Coleridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
For Guy the hours passed so pleasantly that he forgot his dread of the
coming night. Not being in any way conscious, he asked Florella to come
and look for subjects among the flowers, quite easily. And she came,
remembering them much better than he did, looking for old favourites,
and showing him which she had formerly tried to paint.
"I cannot do the harebells," she said. "I have drawn them; but the
colour and the light is altogether impossible, and I have had to come
down to a little bunch in the rock--quite earthly--but they just recall
the others. Perhaps some day, when I have practised a great deal, I may
be able to paint the heavenly ones."
"You made me _see_ them," said Guy.
"That's something, isn't it?" she said. "But that's why drawing is so
good. It teaches one to see."
There was plenty of general chatter, and the whole party strolled about,
ate fruit, and picked flowers together.
A tall fair young man was rather feebly sweeping the garden path. He
touched his cap as the party passed him, and said, in a cracked, but
cordial voice, "There's rasps down yonder, sir, for t'yoong leddies."
Guy recognised him, with a start of distaste, as the "soft" lad he had
seen in the churchyard.
"Thank you, Jem," said Godfrey, "we'll look for them. This way, isn't
it, Jeanie?"
Jeanie was very shy, and very much afraid of these "clever girls;" she
secretly disliked the thought of them. But it was pleasing to find how
open they were to raspberries and Morelia cherries, and, in the
afternoon she felt a pride in showing them over the house, and pointing
out the pictures and other curiosities.
Guy avoided this part of the entertainment, on the excuse of making
arrangements about the time of return, and as he came back from
interviewing the driver of the waggonette, he found that Florella was in
the garden, sketching a bit of snap-dragon on the top of the low wall
that divided it from the fruit-garden. Guy made for her pretty blue
dress, which reminded him of her blue harebells.
"Do you like the flowers better than the house?" he said.
"I did not much want to go over the house," she answered; "and if you
please, Mr Waynflete, I think I should like to tell you why."
"Why, have you any reason?" said Guy, startled.
"Yes," she answered. "Of course it is a very silly thing, and my sister
never thought of it but as the merest joke; but I have always felt it
was more wrong than we knew. When we were here, we used to hide and
make odd noises, to see whether we could make people think it was the
ghost."
"What?" exclaimed Guy. "What did you do?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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