"Grace Holden!" I said, "plunge your face into cold water, and go straight to your work in the studio. You have negatives to retouch, and prints to tone and develop, and nearly a dozen miniatures to paint, all of which are shamefully overdue; and no amount of wool-gathering will bring you in the thirty shillings which you have fixed as your weekly minimum. Now be a sensible woman, and 'frame,' as your neighbours say."
So I "framed," thinking the while how contemptuously the Cynic would smile at my thirty shillings.
CHAPTER XV
ROSE ARRIVES
The surprises of life are sometimes to be counted amongst its blessings. I daresay Reuben Goodenough, who is one of the most religious men I have met—though I am puzzled to know where his religion comes from, seeing that he rarely visits church or chapel—would affirm that all life's incidents are to be regarded as blessings. "All things work together for good," as "t' Owd Book" says.
He argued this point with me at considerable length one day, and though he did not convince my head he secured the approval of my heart. He is distinctly a philosopher after his kind, with the important advantage that his philosophy is not too ethereal and transcendent, but designed for everyday use. He professes to believe that there are no such things as "misfortunes," and so takes each day's events calmly. For the life of me I cannot see it, but I rather cling to the thought when the untoward happens.
Be that as it may, the surprise which "struck me all of a heap," to use a common expression of my neighbours, in the last week of June was a blessing that one could count at the time.
It was evening, and I was standing in the garden among the roses and pinks, engaged in removing the few weeds which had escaped Mother Hubbard's observant eye, and pausing occasionally to wonder which I admired the more—the stately irises in their magnificent and varied robes, or the great crimson peonies which made a glorious show in one corner—when the gate was pushed open, and an elegant young lady, in a smart, tailor-made costume and a becoming toque, glided towards me. I took another look and gasped for breath.
"Well, Grace," said the apparition, holding out a neatly gloved hand, "one would say that you were astonished to see me."