The School-girls' Treasury: Stories for Thoughtful Girls
Lucy Ellen Guernsey
9781465502704
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
You would not oftener see a pleasanter parlor than the one where Anna was sitting. It was handsomely and tastefully furnished, with abundance of pictures and prints on the walls. There were pretty chintz curtains to the one large window, and the couches and chairs were covered with the same material. There was a bright blazing fire burning in the grate, and a pretty kitten sat purring on the rug before it. The gas was lighted, and a table at Anna's elbow was strewn with books and magazines. Yet Anna sat in her comfortable chair before the fire, looking very doleful indeed, and she had been sitting so for a whole hour. She had a book in her hand, but she was not reading: her eyes were apparently fixed on the kitten before the fire, and it was easy to see that a very little would make them overflow with tears. In fact, Anna felt very unhappy, and—in spite of her long frocks which she had worn for a full half year—very babyish indeed. Anna had been left at home to keep house for a week, while her father and mother and the two younger children went to visit her grandfather. Anna had expected a very dear friend to stay with her while her father and mother were gone. Lillie Adams was to have come by the evening train, and Anna had caused a dainty hot supper to be prepared for her; but instead of her friend, the postman brought a hurried letter from Lillie Adams, saying that her father had been suddenly called abroad on business and wished her to go with him: so she was going to Germany upon three days' notice, instead of coming to visit Anna. This was a grievous disappointment, no doubt, and it was no wonder that Anna felt it; but she was not going to work to meet it in the right way. She was making the worst instead of the best of the case. She would not eat a mouthful of the supper which had been prepared for her friend; she betook herself to none of her usual evening employments, but sat moodily before the fire, picturing to herself the merry group which would be assembled at her grandfather's fireside, and the delightful bustle in which Lillie Adams was engaged preparing to go abroad. And contrasting these things with her own lonely condition and the long tiresome week of solitude which was before her. There was great danger of the eyes overflowing, after all: when the opening of the door and the entrance of the cook made a moment's diversion. Caroline Davis was a colored woman who had lived with Mrs. Grey ever since her marriage, and was regarded as a friend and counsellor by all the family, from the oldest to the youngest, especially by the children. She was apt to "speak her mind," as she said, on all occasions, especially when she thought she saw any of the children going wrong, and she had come to speak her mind now to her favorite, Miss Anna.
