headpiece to The Mirror's Dream
THE MIRROR'S DREAM
"The very idea of putting me in the attic!" said the little old-fashioned table, as it spread out both leaves in a gesture of despair. "I have stood in the parlor down-stairs for fifty years, and now I am consigned to the rubbish-room," and it dropped its leaves at its side with a sigh.
"I was there longer than that," said the sofa. "Many a courtship I have helped along."
"What do you think of me?" asked an old mirror that stood on the floor, leaning against the wall. "To be brought to the attic after reflecting generation after generation. All the famous beauties have looked into my face; it is a degradation from which I can never recover. This young mistress who has come here to live does not seem to understand the dignity of our position. Why, I was in the family when her husband's grandmother was a girl and she has doomed me to a dusty attic to dream out the rest of my days."
The shadows deepened in the room and gradually the discarded mirror ceased to complain. It had fallen asleep, but later the moonlight streamed in through the window and showed that its dreams were pleasant ones, for it dreamed of the old and happy days.
The door opened softly and a young girl entered. Her hair was dark and hung in curls over her white shoulders. Her dark eyes wandered over the room until she saw the old mirror.
She ran across the room and stood in front of it. She wore a hoop-skirt over which hung her dress of pale gray, with tiny pink ruffles that began at her slender waist and ended at the bottom of her wide skirt.
Tiny pink rosebuds were dotted over the waist and skirt, and she also wore them in her dark curls, where one stray blossom bolder than the others rested against her soft cheek.
She stood before the mirror and gazed at her reflection a minute; then she curtsied, and said, with a laugh, "I think you will do; he must speak to-night."