Leila at Home / a continuation of Leila in England

by Ann Fraser Tytler

“No, it would not,” Leila answered, smiling; “for it has not really a thousand eyes, it has only spots on its feathers; but it is a poetical way of speaking that——”

Nurse looked very grave. “How often have I told you, Miss Leila, that I do not like a poetical way of speaking, and now you see the bad effects of it; from my experience, I knew that no bird had a thousand eyes, but Amy did not; you should speak to her in a way she can understand; but you do run on so. Is there no possibility of making you think of what you are about? I see clearly that pocket never will be finished.”

Leila was silent for a moment, then jumping up from her seat, she held the pocket up in the air in a triumphant manner, exclaiming,—“Now, Nurse, look if I cannot both talk and stitch; see, it is quite finished, and beautifully done; and now I must go and sing to papa.”

“She is a dear child,” Nurse observed, as she looked up for a moment from her work and followed Leila’s light steps with affectionate interest; “and she is far from being a bad needle-woman either, though I should like well to see her more steady, and taking a greater interest in it; but, Amy, though Miss Leila in most things sets you a most superior example, you must never talk as she does sometimes—you must never be what she calls poetical. I would rather that she were not so either; but that is a matter for her papa to decide, not me.”

CHAPTER XIV.

WEEKS and months glided on. Spring, with its soft, tender, green, and many blossoms, was spreading life and gladness over the earth, and Leila thought Woodlands a second Eden. The conservatory bloomed with plants of the richest fragrance, and the balcony was gay with flowers of the brightest hue; various beautiful creepers, with the sweet-scented honeysuckle, forming arches over head; and Leila herself looked as fresh and blooming as the flowers, and as joyful as the skylark, as it soared with its glad song into the blue vault of Heaven. She was never weary of admiring the beautiful scenery by which she was surrounded, for early habit had made the beauties of nature to her as a continual feast. Several of her birds were now in full song, and she spent many of her spare minutes in the conservatory. The precious seeds had come up all but one, and she had now three thriving plants of Clara’s flower. Charles had not returned at Easter to mark their progress—he had gone into a distant country to visit an uncle, a brother of Mr. Herbert’s, but by Midsummer he would surely visit home, and she hoped they would be in full flower by that time, which would be for him a still greater pleasure. Leila had, besides all this, other interests to occupy her. She frequently visited the school with her Aunt Stanley and her cousins, and assisted the younger girls in the preparation of their tasks, and she paid frequent visits to Peggy Dobie’s cottage, and to the village, where she made herself acquainted with all the wishes and wants of its various inmates. The Saturdays were generally spent by Selina and Matilda at Woodlands, when, during part of the morning, they assisted Leila in giving instruction to many of the village children in church music, for though Selina’s voice was not yet strong, her knowledge in music made her a most useful assistant. They also now took daily walks with Mrs. Roberts in the fields, and generally returned loaded with wild flowers. Leila had become most successful in drying flowers so as to preserve their bright colours. The field flowers, assisted by her papa, she arranged in books in botanical order; but with the flowers from the conservatory and the garden she often ornamented screens, producing a wonderfully fine effect, superior to any painting, fixing them on with gum, and grouping them together in a most beautiful manner. Matilda often tried to imitate Leila in this, but she did not succeed, her flowers always lost their bright tints, they grew white, or they grew black, but they never grew beautiful; the stalks never would bend gracefully, they would always stick straight up; the gum would always go on in patches, never smoothly, and she complained that though she put on a great deal of gum, some of the leaves would not stick at all, so she generally ended by getting into a rage, and dashing her hair pencil all over the paper.

“Do tell me, Leila, how you manage so well,” she said one morning, as she stood admiring a couple of fine screens which Leila had just finished for Mrs. Herbert. “Those different coloured geraniums seem to me to look brighter even than when they were in the conservatory; and how gracefully the stalks are bent, and the flowers hanging down so nicely, just as if they were still growing; and those leaves and ferns are of such a beautiful green, and look so well mixed with the bright colour of the flowers. My green leaves always turn a dull yellow, or brown, or something abominable; and as to the blue convolvulus, that provokes me more than any thing. Look at yours, they are as bright as when they grew in the garden, and when I try to dry them, the colour goes away altogether, and they get to be a dirty white. I cannot get any thing to do well but yellow buttercups, and that is such a common flower. All this provokes me so, I have no patience for it. No one will ever give me a sovereign for the poor,[B] for a couple of screens, as they did to you, and I wish so much that they would.”

[B] A fact.

“But you know,” Leila answered, “that was only because it was a sale of ladies’ work for the poor. My screens were not worth that.”

“I don’t know; they were most beautiful, and I heard every one saying so, for I stood near the counter where they were that I might hear them praised; and when that gentleman with the nice face took them up and the lady told them they were done by a little girl, he said that little girl deserved to be encouraged, and he paid down the sovereign in a minute. Oh! I was so glad; but though I cannot earn a sovereign, I might earn something if you would only tell me what I must do to dry them as you do.”