Flora was not affected on the point of dress. She had no unnecessary or false pride in that respect, but she had the natural regard to external appearance, which every woman, young or old, unless utterly lost, possesses; and, though she was not truly cognisant of the influence a tasteful arrangement of well-fashioned garments would have in heightening charms already of a very superior order, she had no desire to present herself to Harry Vivian disguised in a dress sufficiently capacious for Mrs. Harper, but in no degree contract-able to her dimensions.
With most generous spirit and charming willingness, the old lady put the powers of her draper and her dressmaker into active requisition, and Flora was able to quit her room in the time mentioned.
She rapidly recovered her health and a certain serenity of mind. The loss of all her father’s little property, buried among the charred ruins opposite, was an evil to be regretted, but it was a fact which no grief could disturb or obviate. A remedy was to be sought—something was to be done for herself, probably for her father too, who, an inmate of a prison, was scarcely likely to be able to help himself; and from the moment she came to recognise and comprehend her position, her mind busied itself in forming plans for the future, by which she should at least be able to support him who had no one now in the wide, wide world to look up to but herself.
She was hopeful and sanguine, but she knew very little of the world.
Old Mr. Harper knew a very great deal about it, plain and matter-of-fact as he appeared. He had for some time past determined to have a country house at Islington—in fact, had decided upon it, and was slowly having it furnished. He pushed on the work now; for, after a very grave consultation with Mrs. Harper, his wife, he decided that the poor girl, bereaved of home by fire, and of a father by the law, could not turn out into the streets. So, looking upon her as a trust confided to his care by the Almighty, he resolved to take charge of her, house, feed, and clothe her, until something was done in her behalf by such persons as had a better title to perform the good work than himself.
Thus, at the end of a week, he calculated upon entering his new house at Highbury, which he should leave in the morning and return to at night, accompanied by his nephew, and he resolved that Flora Wilton should become an inmate as well as those who constituted his family. He absolutely chuckled to think what a delightful companion she would make his wife, who, having lived so long in the old house in Clerkenwell, would find the solitude of her new home, without such society as that now ready for her, absolutely insupportable.
Mr. Harper confided to Hal the task of imparting to Flora his intentions.
“She owes you something for the service you afforded her in escaping,” said the old goldsmith, “and so if she raises any foolish objection, the prompting of a reluctance to become burdensome, or any such stuff as that—for she is just the sort of girl to show a great deal of pride, you know—you will be able to combat her arguments and reason her out of it.”
Hal’s face lighted up as though a sunbeam had made it radiant.
What happiness to have her dwelling at his home, her eyes to greet him when he returned at night, and follow him when he departed in the morning, her sweet-toned voice to welcome him and to speed him on his way, her delicious presence to smoothe down the fatigues of his daily labour, and to wile away imperceptibly hours which otherwise might drag their slow length tediously along.