The room
looked so cheerful with its chintz--a green trellis hung with roses on
a white ground--that one could not be gloomy and fearful in it, even if
I did not know that my dear godmother would leave the door between our
rooms open at night and would wake if I but stirred.
Louise helped me to put on the one black gown I possessed, which, as it
happened, was patterned with roses, a crepe de Chine fichu about the
neck, and I asked Louise to take it off and find me something more
becoming; but my godmother would have it so, saying that poor Joan would
not grudge me a few roses, having herself found the roses of Paradise.
That quiet radiancy of my godmother seemed to diffuse itself over
everything. I know I felt happier than I had felt for a long time, and I
tried to put all the trouble, and the thought that I was to marry
Richard Dawson the week before Christmas, out of my mind.
Everything about the dinner-table was so pretty. I could not help
feeling that my godmother had told them it was to be so; and the wax
candles shone on the scarlet berries and russet and orange and crimson
leaves, on the delicate napery and glass and silver; and the fire leaped
and sparkled in the grate.
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