Aunt Deborah | Page 6

third starry flower the yellow loose-strife, the milk vetch, purple, or pink, or cream coloured, backed by moss-like leaves and lilac blossoms of the lousewort, and overhung by the fragrant bells and cool green leaves of the lily of the valley.
* Few flowers, (and almost all look best when arranged each sort in its separate vase,)--few look so well together as the four sorts of double wallflowers. The common dark, (the old bloody warrior)--I have a love for those graphic names-- words which paint the common dark, the common yellow, the newer and more intensely coloured dark, and that new gold colour still so rare, which is in tint, form, growth, hardiness, and profusion, one of the most valuable acquisitions to the flower garden. When placed together in ajar, the brighter blossoms seem to stand out from those of deeper hue, with exactly the sort of relief, the harmonious combination of light and shade, that one sometimes sees in the rich gilt carving of an old flower-wreathed picture- frame, or, better still, it might seem a pot of flowers chased in gold, by Benvenuto Cellini, in which the workmanship outvalued the metal. Many beaupots are gayer, many sweeter, but this is the richest, both for scent and colour, that I have ever seen.
It would puzzle a gardener to surpass the elegance and delicacy of such a nosegay.
Offerings like these did our miller's maiden delight to bring at all seasons, and under all circumstances, whether of peace or war between the heads of the two opposite houses; and whenever there chanced to be a lull in the storm, she availed herself of the opportunity to add to her simple tribute a dish of eels from the mill-stream, or perch from the river. That the thought of Edward ("dear Edward," as she always called him,) might not add somewhat of alacrity to her attentions to his wayward aunt, I will not venture to deny, but she would have done the same if Edward had not been in existence, from the mere effect of her own peacemaking spirit, and a generosity of nature which found more pleasure in giving than in possessing. A sweet and happy creature was Cicely; it was difficult even for Mrs. Deborah to resist her gentle voice and artless smiles.
Affairs were in this posture between the belligerents, sometimes war to the knife, sometimes a truce under favour of Cissy's white flag, when one October evening, John Stokes entered the dwelling of his kinswoman to inform her that Edward's apprenticeship had been some time at an end, that he had come of age about a month ago, and that his master, for whom he had continued to work, was so satisfied of his talents, industry, and integrity, that he had offered to take him into partnership for a sum incredibly moderate, considering the advantages which such a connexion would ensure.
"You have more than the money wanted in the Belford Bank, money that ought to have been his," quoth John Stokes, "besides all your property in land and houses and the funds; and if you did advance this sum, which all the world knows is only a small part of what should have belonged to him in right of his father, it would be as safe as if it was in the Bank of England, and the interest paid half-yearly. You ought to give it him out and out; but of course you won't even lend it," pursued this judicious negotiator; "you keep all your money for that precious chap, Mr. 'Dolphus, to make ducks and drakes with after you are dead; a fine jig he'll dance over your grave. You know, I suppose, that we've got the fellow in a cleft stick about that petition the other day? He persuaded old Jacob, who's as deaf as a post, to put his mark to it, and when he was gone, Jacob came to me (I'm the only man in the parish who can make him hear) to ask what it was about. So upon my explaining the matter, Jacob found he had got into the wrong box. But as the chap had taken away his petition, and Jacob could not scratch out his name, what does he do but set his mark to ours o' t'other side; and we've wrote all about it to Sir Robert to explain to the Parliament, lest seeing Jacob's name both ways like, they should think 'twas he, poor fellow, that meant to humbug 'em. A pretty figure Mr. 'Dolphus 'll cut when the story comes to be told in the House of Commons! But that's not the worst. He took the petition to the workhouse, and meeting with little Fan Ropley, who had been taught to write at our charity-school, and is quick at her