The White Dove
9781465633392
200 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Miss Lanyon worshipped her brother, but she felt there were many odd corners of his mind which needed the housewifely besom; just as there were cobwebs in his office which, on the rare occasions when she entered it, made her fingers twitch. But being organically acquiescent she sighed again sentimentally, and brought Matthew his hat and stick. For Ella, the hours of that day were winged with sunshine. She loved Sylvester as deeply as one of our untried, pure-minded Northern girls can love; and with larger wisdom, too, than most. For she had lived a free life in her aunt's eccentric house in London, and had sifted the vanities of many men. Passion would only be evoked by the clasp of encircling arms and would rise to meet claiming lips. As yet in Ella it lay a pure fire hidden in the depths of a fervent nature. But all the sweet thrills of a woman's early love were hers,—the pride in a strong man's wooing, the fluttering fears as to her sufficiency for his happiness, the resolves, scarce formulated, to raise herself to his level, the dim dreams of a noble life together, striving for the great things of the world that are worth the winning. Added thereto was the delicate charm, essentially feminine, of triumph over the shadows that had fought with her for possession of his heart. When she entered her room to dress for dinner that evening, she took down her frocks and laid them on the bed, and stood a while in deep thought. She must look her best tonight. She chose a simple cream dress with chiffon round the bodice and sleeves. Halfway through her toilette she clasped her white arms over her neck, and looking in the glass held long converse with her image. It seemed so strange that she, with all her imperfections of soul and body, should be chosen to guide a man's destiny. Then lighter fancies prevailed, and she spent anxious moments in arranging her thick auburn hair. When she came down at last, with a diamond-hilted dagger thrust through the coils, and a bunch of violets peeping shyly from the chiffon in her corsage, Matthew paid her an old man's compliment. “Do I look nice?” she asked, gratified. “I'm glad; for you once told me that you liked me in this frock.” There are times when the sincerest of women can be most blandly deceitful. A general practitioner may propose to himself many pleasant occupations for his spare hours, but his patients dispose of them effectually. On this particular day, when Sylvester craved leisure to watch over Leroux and to open his heart finally to Ella, impossible people fell sick at interminable distances, tiny human beings came with preposterous haste into this world of trouble, and larger ones gave sudden and alarming symptoms of leaving it. It was one of those well-known days of sudden stress when a country doctor eats his meals standing and wearing his overcoat. Finally, an evening visit from which he reckoned on being free by nine kept him by an anxious bedside till nearly eleven.
