“I was young; they called me fair. My mirror revealed masses of jet-black hair which rippled smoothly to the floor and lay in silken piles on the velvet carpet. My eyes—there was one who called them starry pools of night. My cheek was a white rose.”
Stephanie thought this a wonderful description. Honor, as I say, always found comfort in it, and forgot the freckles while she was following the fortunes of her dark-eyed counterpart.
“To-morrow, perhaps! Now—Stephanie, thou must help me in a sorrowful task. It is to put away—”
“Thy colored dresses, chérie? But surely! but thou wilt wear white, Honor? It is everywhere admitted as mourning, thou knowest!”
“Fiordispina and Angélique!” Honor spoke with sorrowful dignity and resolve. “Yes, Stephanie, it must be so! While my parents lived, do you see, I was a child; now—” An eloquent shrug and wave completed the sentence. “I am resolved!” she said. “These dear ones, with whom my happy childhood has been passed, must retire to—finally, to the shades of memory, Stephanie!”
“How noble!” murmured Stephanie. “Thou art heroic, Honor!”
Shaking her head sadly, Honor opened a cupboard door, and with careful hands drew out—certainly, two of the most beautiful dolls that ever were seen. Maman had chosen them with her own exquisite taste, in Paris and Rome. Angélique, the Parisian maiden, was blonde as Patricia herself, with flaxen hair and eyes of real sky-blue; Fiordispina, on the other hand, might almost stand for Honor’s dream-self. Her hair did not reach the ground, much less lie in silken piles on the velvet carpet, but it was long enough to braid, and it was real hair: moreover it was hair with a story to it. Maman had bought it in Rome, from a woman whose daughter had just entered a convent, and had her beautiful hair cut off. The woman wept, and assured Mrs. Bright that there was no such hair in Rome. Most of it had been purchased by two noble Princesses whom age had deprived of their own chevelure; there was but this little tress left. She had thought to preserve it as a memento of her child, but for the puppazza of so charming a donzella as the—finally—she named a price, and Fiordispina received her head of hair, in place of the bit of fuzzy lamb’s wool which had disfigured her pretty head.
Honor looked long and tenderly at the doll; then, dipping her hand into the pitcher of water that stood on the commode close by, she sprinkled some crystal drops on the calm bisque face.
“Tiens!” she said. “She weeps, my Fiordispina! how lovely she is in affliction, Stephanie! If I dressed her in mourning, but deep, you understand—do you think I might keep her? But no! I have resolved. The sacrifice is made!”
She produced two neat box beds, and laid Fiordispina, serenely smiling through her tears, in one, while Stephanie tucked Angélique snugly in the other. They were covered with their own little satin quilts, embroidered with their names; the boxes were closed and tied with satin ribbon.