Loveday's history

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

In this mood I went out to the garden, where my own little flower plot lay looking so prim and pretty, and where I had spent so many pleasant hours with my cousins, who were now not allowed to speak with me, though they often gave me looks of compassion. Indeed, Katherine had brought herself into temporary disgrace on my account, by telling Betty before her grandam, that she was a spiteful, tale-bearing pyet, and deserved to be whipped far more than I did.

I walked about the garden, feeling miserable enough, when the thought struck me that I would go and look at my uncle's Indian tree, which was now coming into flower. I knew that two buds had been just ready to burst the night before. Lo! Not two but three or four flowers were fully out. I know not how to describe them, for I never saw any like them before or since. They were round in shape, somewhat like a rose but more regular, with thick, wax-like leaves, and some yellow in the center. I stood, as it were, entranced before them, and at last I stooped down and kissed one of them, but without doing it any harm.

"So, Mistress Loveday!" said Madge's sharp voice behind me. "You are not content with what you have done, but you must needs break and spoil your good uncle's flowers."

I turned and saw Madge and Betty regarding me. I vouchsafed them no reply, but walked away to my own garden, my heart swelling almost to bursting with anger, grief, and wounded pride. Somehow its neatness and brightness seemed to mock me, and, in a fit of rage, I set my foot on a beautiful white lily and crushed it into the earth. The deed was no sooner done than repented. Bursting into tears, I raised the poor plant from the ground. Its once white flower, all broken and smirched with soil, seemed to reproach me with my cruelty. It was ruined beyond hope. I wept over it till I could weep no more, and then, mournfully burying it out of sight, I returned to the house.

That evening, as I was sitting in my own room, trying to divert myself a little with my work, I received a summons to the parlor. There sat my uncle, with the severest face I had ever seen him wear. In his hands he held one of the flowers of the India tree, broken and soiled.

"Loveday, do you know any thing of this?" said he, sternly.

I felt myself change color, but answered firmly: "No, uncle. I saw four flowers on the tree this morning, but I have not seen them since."

"That is not true," said he, more sternly still. "You were seen to pick them, to crush them, and then bury them in the ground in your garden, where this one was found just now."

"I did not do any such thing!" I answered, hotly enough. "I did kiss one of them, because it looked so friendly at me, but I did not hurt it, I know."

My uncle made a sign to Betty, who was standing by. To my utter amazement, she declared that she and her grandmother had just stopped me from destroying the flowers in the morning, and that watching me afterward, from the chamber window, she had seen me carry something to my garden and stamp it into the earth. She had not thought much about it till she heard the flowers were missing, and then looking where she had seen me at work, she found one of the flowers.