The Lost Dahlia

The Lost Dahlia, by Mary Russell
Mitford

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Title: The Lost Dahlia
Author: Mary Russell Mitford
Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22837]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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DAHLIA ***

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THE LOST DAHLIA.
By Mary Russell Mitford
If to have "had losses" be, as affirmed by Dogberry in one of

Shakspeare's most charming plays, and corroborated by Sir Walter
Scott in one of his most charming romances--(those two names do well
in juxtaposition, the great Englishman! the great Scotsman!)--If to have
"had losses" be a main proof of credit and respectability, then am I one
of the most responsible persons in the whole county of Berks. To say
nothing of the graver matters which figure in a banker's book, and
make, in these days of pounds, shillings, and pence, so large a part of
the domestic tragedy of life--putting wholly aside all the grander
transitions of property in house and land, of money on mortgage, and
money in the funds--(and yet I might put in my claim to no trifling
amount of ill luck in that way also, if I had a mind to try my hand at a
dismal story)--counting for nought all weightier grievances, there is not
a lady within twenty miles who can produce so large a list of small
losses as my unfortunate self.
From the day when, a tiny damsel of some four years old, I first had a
pocket-handkerchief to lose, down to this very night--I will not say how
many years after--when, as I have just discovered, I have most certainly
lost from my pocket the new cambric kerchief which I deposited
therein a little before dinner, scarcely a week has passed without some
part of my goods and chattels being returned missing. Gloves, muffs,
parasols, reticules, have each of them a provoking knack of falling from
my hands; boas glide from my neck, rings slip from my fingers, the
bow has vanished from my cap, the veil from my bonnet, the sandal
from my foot, the brooch from my collar, and the collar from my
brooch. The trinket which I liked best, a jewelled pin, the first gift of a
dear friend, (luckily the friendship is not necessarily appended to the
token,) dropped from my shawl in the midst of the high road; and of
shawls themselves, there is no end to the loss. The two prettiest that
ever I had in my life, one a splendid specimen of Glasgow
manufacture--a scarlet hardly to be distinguished from Cashmere--the
other a lighter and cheaper fabric, white in the centre, with a delicate
sprig, and a border harmoniously compounded of the deepest blue, the
brightest orange, and the richest brown, disappeared in two successive
summers and winters, in the very bloom of their novelty, from the folds
of the phaeton, in which they had been deposited for safety--fairly
blown overboard! If I left things about, they were lost. If I put them

away, they were lost. They were lost in the drawers--they were lost out
And if for a miracle I had them safe under lock and key, why, then, I
lost my keys! I was certainly the most unlucky person under the sun. If
there was nothing else to lose, I was fain to lose myself--I mean my
way; bewildered in these Aberleigh lanes of ours, or in the woodland
recesses of the Penge, as if haunted by that fairy, Robin Good-fellow,
who led Hermia and Helena such a dance in the Midsummer Night's
Dream. Alas! that there should be no Fairies now-a-days, or rather no
true believers in Fairies, to help us to bear the burthen of our own
mortal carelessness.
It was not quite all carelessness, though! Some ill luck did mingle with
a great deal of mismanagement, as the "one poor happ'orth of bread"
with the huge gallon of sack in the bill of which Poins picked Falstaff's
pocket when he was asleep behind the arras. Things belonging to me,
or things that I cared for, did contrive to get lost, without my having
any hand in the matter. For instance, if out of the variety of "talking
birds," starlings, jackdaws, and magpies, which my father delights to
entertain, any one particularly diverting or accomplished, more than
usually coaxing and mischievous, happened to attract my attention, and
to pay me the compliment of following at my heels, or perching upon