When the carriage first started to bring Barbara Stafford, Elizabeth had been, like the whole household, eager to honor a guest whom the governor had invited. She had gathered up all the unoccupied vases, and filled them with flowers; they blushed upon the toilet and the chest of drawers, and took the wind as it swept over the broad window-seats, filling the room with brightness and fragrance.
In order to indulge her own wild caprices, she had gathered all the blush-roses in bloom, and looped them among the snow of the curtains. It was strange; but while she stood, angry and flushed, at the foot of the stairs, longing to run up and destroy her own beautiful work, Barbara grew faint as death upon the threshold of the chamber. She turned an imploring look on Lady Phipps, and said—"Oh, take me away—I entreat you, take me to some other room."
"What, the flowers—the roses?" said Lady Phipps, surprised; "I will have them removed. How pale you are! how your hands quiver! I would not have believed that the scent of a few flowers could make one so ill."
Barbara was not a woman to give way to caprices of the nerves; she sat down in the great easy-chair, draped with white dimity, to which Lady Phipps led her, swept a hand across her forehead once or twice, and lifting her pale face, looked upward at a portrait of Governor Phipps, which hung in a massive frame upon the wall. This was the first object that had met her eyes on entering the room. The portrait had been taken years before, and was that of a young man, spirited and full of power. There was a smile upon the mouth, a consciousness of strength in the glance, that bespoke innate greatness.
When Barbara lifted her face to the picture, it was hard and pale; the rigidity of a stern resolution locked it like a vice; but as she gazed, the snow melted from her features. The lips began to tremble, the white lids drooped quivering over the eyes, and she shivered all over.
"No, no! do not remove the flowers," she said gently to Lady Phipps, who had taken a vase from the toilet. "I am better now. The walk was too much for me. Indeed, I have been subject to these turns ever since that terrible day. Do not blame the roses for my weakness; you see how much better I am."
She sat up in the easy-chair and looked around, evidently with great effort, but striving to smile and to subdue her weakness in every way.
"I am glad you are better," said Lady Phipps, kindly bending over the chair, at which Barbara shrunk back like one who fears some hurt, "and glad also that the poor flowers can remain as Elizabeth left them; she took such pains to gather and arrange them, dear child."
Barbara lifted her head suddenly, and grasped the arm of her chair.
"Dear child—your daughter, madam?"