The Next Day, We Took Possession Of Our New Mansion, And No One Was
Better Pleased With The Change Than Little Katie.
She was now
fifteen months old, and could just begin to prattle, but she dared
not venture to step alone, although she would stand by a chair all
day, and even climb upon it.
She crept from room to room, feeling
and admiring everything, and talking to it in her baby language.
So fond was the dear child of flowers, that her father used to hold
her up to the apple-trees, then rich in their full spring beauty,
that she might kiss the blossoms. She would pat them with her soft
white hands, murmuring like a bee among the branches. To keep her
quiet whilst I was busy, I had only to give her a bunch of wild
flowers. She would sit as still as a lamb, looking first at one
and then another, pressing them to her little breast in a sort of
ecstacy, as if she comprehended the worth of this most beautiful
of God's gifts to man.
She was a sweet, lovely flower herself, and her charming infant
graces reconciled me, more than aught else, to a weary lot. Was she
not purely British? Did not her soft blue eyes, and sunny curls, and
bright rosy cheeks for ever remind me of her Saxon origin, and bring
before me dear forms and faces I could never hope to behold again?
The first night we slept in the new house, a demon of unrest had
taken possession of it in the shape of a countless swarm of mice.
They scampered over our pillows, and jumped upon our faces,
squeaking and cutting a thousand capers over the floor.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 188 of 670
Words from 50849 to 51140
of 181664
