The Late Miss Hollingford | Page 7

shy in any company as I did in the presence of my mother's friend.
After breakfast she led me to my room, bright and airy, but scantily furnished. It had a window looking out on an orchard threaded by long alleys, over which hung a glowing roof of fruit-laden branches. And here I unpacked my trunks and stowed away my elegant dresses in a huge painted wardrobe smelling of apples. I laid aside with a kind of shame all the little ornaments I was accustomed to wear, and dressed myself in the plainest gown I possessed. Descending the quaint old staircase again, I found Mrs. Hollingford walking up and down the hall waiting patiently for my appearance.
"What a great woman you have grown, my love!" she said, drawing my hand within her arm, and leading me through the open hall door. "But you have still your mother's fair hair and sunny eyes. Will you walk with me for an hour? I have much to say to you, and the sooner it is said the better."
Then she told me the story of her life, and misfortunes, sternly, sweetly, with strange humility and fortitude. I knew much of it before, but she would tell it all.
"And now, my love," she said, "you know us as we are. Your mother, when she made me your guardian, did not foresee the changes that were to take place. You have other friends who are willing to give you a home. You have come here of your own will. When you wish to leave us we shall not wonder."
I threw my arms round her neck and told her I would not leave her. Never, since Miss Kitty Sweetman went to India, had my heart gone forth so completely to anyone.
She bade me not be too hasty. "You will find our life so different from anything you have ever known," she said. "We all fear it for you. We are so busy here. We have always a purpose before our eyes to make us work."
"Then I shall work too," I said. "I will not be the only drone in such a thrifty hive."
She smiled at this, and shook her head. But I immediately began to cast about for the means by which I might find it possible to keep my word.
CHAPTER III.
I soon learned to love the farm. I began to know the meaning of the word "home." The beauty and lovableness of some persons and places takes you by surprise; with others they steal upon you by degrees; but there was that about Hillsbro' Farm which I loved much at once and more afterwards. Looking at it in the most commonplace way, it had all the peace and plenty of an English farmhouse, while for eyes that sought more they would find enough that was picturesque in the orchard's ruddy thickets, where the sun struck fire on frosty mornings; in the wide pasture lands sloping to the sedgy river, where the cows cooled their feet on sultry evenings. You know as well as I the curious bowery garden beyond the lower window of the parlour, stocked with riches and sweets of all kinds, rows of bee-hives standing in the sun, roses and raspberries growing side by side. The breaths of thyme and balm, lavender and myrtle, were always in that parlour. You know the sheep-fold and the paddock, the old tree over the west gable where the owl made his nest--the owl that used to come and sit on our school-room windowsill and hoot at night. You know, the sun-dial where the screaming peacock used to perch and spread his tail; the dove-cote, where the silver-necks and fan-tails used to coo and ruffle their feathers. You know, too, all the quaint plannings and accidents of the old house; how the fiery creeper ran riot through the ivy on the dark walls, dangling its burning wreaths over the windows; how the hall door lay open all day with the dogs sleeping on the broad door-step. Also, within, that there were long dark passages, rooms with low ceilings; a step up here, and a step down there; fireplaces twisted into odd corners, narrow pointed windows, and wide latticed ones. You know all the household recesses, the dairies and pantries and store-rooms; but you cannot know how Mrs. Hollingford toiled amongst them, filling them with her industry one day that they might be emptied the next; hardening her delicate hands with labour to the end that justice might be done, that some who had lost might gain, that a portion of her husband's heavy debts might be paid, and a portion of the curse of the impoverished lifted from his guilty shoulders.
No luxury was ever permitted in that household. Old gowns were worn and mended till they could be worn