Dear old Turner, how his face began to work.
“She is a good girl—a very good girl. We’ve done all we could to spoil her like two old fools, her bonne and I; but somehow she’s too much for us; as for the spoiling, it isn’t to be done.”
I saw Cora through an open door, and laying a double handful of the cherries on her father’s robe, ran toward her. She looked pale, poor thing, and her sweet eyes were dull and heavy. She was in a little room that opened to the parlor, and, still in her long linen night-gown, and with her golden curls breaking from a tiny muslin cap, lay upon the cushions of a chintz sofa; for, it seems, she had refused to be taken entirely from her father, and he had spent his night in the easy-chair.
“Her head was aching terribly,” she said; “she had been awake some time, but papa was so still that it frightened her. She was afraid that he had gone to sleep like her mother, and never would wake up again.”
The quick sympathies of girlhood soon rendered us both more cheerful. She began to smile when her father’s voice reached us, and refreshed her sweet lips with my cherries, in childish forgetfulness of the sorrow that had rendered them so pale.
“I’m so glad you have come,” she said, leaving the sofa; and gathering up her night-gown till both rosy little feet were exposed upon the matting, she ran to a side door and looked out, calling, “Sarah Blake—Sarah Blake!”
A servant girl, plump and hearty, with little grey eyes, and cheeks red as the cherries in my basket, answered the summons. She looked upon me with apparent curiosity and evident kindness, and taking Cora in her arms, said, “so this is the strange little lady.”
“Isn’t she nice?” whispered Cora. “Isn’t she like a star?”
“Yes, she is a nice playmate; I’m glad you’ve found her, Miss Cora, only one would like to know just who she is.”
I sat down on the matting, as the door closed after them, and taking up the white flowers, began to weave them into a crown. It was an irresistible habit, that of sorting and combining any flowers that came within my reach. I often did this unconsciously, and with a sort of affectionate carefulness, for the rude handling of a blossom gave me pain. It seemed to me impossible that they did not suffer as a child might; so, with a light touch, I wove my garland thick and heavy with leaves and blossoms. I never felt lonely when flowers were my companions. They seemed to me like a beautiful alphabet which God had given, that I might fashion out with them the mystic language of my own heart.