Florence learned that her mother, who was herself in feeble health, had been from time to time informed of her condition, and, as the sickness had never been considered dangerous, had contented herself with writing, at first to ’Lisbeth, afterward to Florence, who was now well enough to answer. In the pure country air she gained rapidly, and before long was enabled to take her seat with the rest at table, on which occasion, be it said, her only anxiety was lest the family should go to bed supperless, with such eagerness did they devote themselves to superintending her own plate. By this time, too, she had learned to say “’Lisbeth” and “grandfather” without hesitation. As to the third member of the family, she compromised with her sense of propriety by addressing him as “Mr. Wesley.” His last name she had not heard.
She was sitting by her window one bright, warm afternoon in April, watching the portly robins, now hopping about after their extraordinary food, now pausing to glance up wisely at the sky or at her window with an air half suspicious, half friendly. Their neat orange-colored waistcoats showed prettily against the fresh-tinted grass, just beginning to spring in velvety patches through the brown, unmown aftermath of the preceding fall.
On the shady side of the old stone wall that ran along the road toward the railway-station, a narrow, irregular snowbank, its surface fantastically carved and honeycombed by the sun, still reminded her of her winter night’s ride. How dreary it had all seemed! How she had dreaded even the Christmas festivities, with the inevitable being “left out”—the awkward movements when she felt that the company about her were not quite sure whether to treat her as an equal or a servant,—worst of all, the well-meant efforts of Mrs. Walton to smooth matters over in private! Ah! how it was all changed now! She would never, never go back to her old position; indeed,—and a shadow crossed her forehead as she thought of it,—Mrs. Walton had never signified her wish to have her return. She would soon be able to help her kind friends in the housework, in sewing, and in other little ways, until she could obtain something to do for herself. She would pay them sometime. How good they had all been to her! She thought once more of that bitter, hopeless ride through the snow. How cold she had been!—her right arm benumbed with holding the robe over the children, whom, with all her troubles, she had learned to love very dearly. She recalled the sudden halt, the moaning of the wind through the trees overhead, the sifting of the sleety snow against the sides of the sleigh. Then she thought of the firm voice, assuming control so quietly, with no needless words, but, what was better, two stout arms. How they had seemed to lift her out of all her troubles, even while she was borne straight into the whirl and might of the storm! She had felt that the arms were stronger than the wind, and so had trusted them. The girl was resting her cheek upon her hand as she lived that long night over again, and she hardly knew what a glow was in her face, or how dewy bright her eyes were, as with a start she turned to answer a knock she had learned to recognize.
Wesley looked straight into the brown eyes a moment in his grave, silent way, then reached out his hand, filled to overflowing with long trailing vines and fragrant pink-and-white blossoms.
“They told me they missed you in the woods,” he said, “and begged me to carry them to you.”
Florence took them in her hands and bent her face over them. She could not speak for a moment, the flowers were such a part of what she had been thinking. “I thank you,” she said at length, tremulously. “They are far too beautiful to claim companionship with me. It is I who should go to them and kneel while I picked them.”
“I always think of them as in ‘Miles Standish’:
Children lost in the woods and covered with leaves in their slumber.