“Is your mother dead?”
Dead! the word struck like cold iron upon my heart. I shuddered on the old man’s bosom. My brain ached with the weight of some painful memory, but it gave back no distinct answer. It seemed as if his question had heaped mountains of snow around me, but I could only reply,
“Dead, what is that?”
He heaved a deep groan and walked on, muttering strangely to himself.
I knew that he was carrying me over innumerable flower beds, for the air was rich with the scent of heliotrope and flowering daphnas, the breath of my old playmates. Then he mounted up some steps, tearing his way through a quantity of vines, and forcing open a sash window with his foot, carried me in.
It was a luxurious apartment, but very gloomy, and silent as a catacomb. The shutters were closed, the air unwholesome and heavy with the odor of dead flowers. I saw nothing distinctly, though my eyes roved with a sort of fascination from object to object. Something deeper than memory stirred in my soul. A chillness seized me, and I longed to go away.
Turner passed on, evidently glad to leave the chamber, and did not pause again till we reached a room that was smaller and more cheerful. He held me with one arm, and with his right hand threw open the shutters.
The sash was a single piece of plate glass, transparent as water. Curtains of gossamer lace and rose-colored silk fell over it, through which the morning sunshine glowed like the dawning of a rainbow.
The old man made me sit up in his arms and look around while he curiously regarded my face. I have said the room was flooded with soft light. The walls were covered with hangings of a delicate tint, sprinkled with rose buds. A carpet of snowy ground, with bouquets of gorgeous flowers scattered over it, as if in veritable bloom, covered the floor. A diminutive easy-chair and sofa, cushioned with rose-colored silk stood opposite to a small bed of gilded ivory, gleaming through a cloud of gossamer lace, which fell in soft, snowy waves from a small hoop of white and gold, like the bedstead, swung to the ceiling by a cord and tassel of silk, twisted with golden threads.
Turner looked at me anxiously, as my eyes wandered around this beautiful room, fitted up evidently for a child—for the bedstead was scarcely larger than a crib, and everything bore evidence of a very youthful occupant.