To me there was an exceeding luxury in
this reflection; for often on those lovely Kentish estates where I had
visited, my heart had been grieved by the extremes of wealth and squalor.
Pinched-faced women and children gazing hungrily through park gates at
the flowers, and fountains, and all the beauty within, while they had no
homes worthy the name, and alas! no flowers or fountains to gladden their
beauty hungered hearts. My friends used to smile at my saddened face as
I looked in these other human faces with a pitying sense of sisterhood,
that was strange to them; but they humored my desire to try and gladden
these lives so limited in their happy allotments, by gifts of rare
flowers and choice fruits. But I used to find the old-fashioned flowers,
that the gardeners grumbled least over my plucking, were the most
welcome.
At luncheon I came in, my hair sea-blown from my visit to the rocks,
and my face finely burnt by the combined influence of wind and sun. I
expressed to Mrs. Flaxman a desire to visit my new acquaintance on the
Mill Road. I noticed a peculiar uplifting of the eyebrows as I glanced
towards Hubert.
"It will be something entirely new in Mill Road experience to have a
friendly call from one of our Cavendish _elite_."
"Why, Hubert," his mother remonstrated, "it is not an unusual thing for
our friends to visit the poor and sick on the Mill Road, as well as in
the other humbler districts."
"Doubtless, but in much the same fashion as Queen Elizabeth used to visit
her subjects--mere royal progresses, more bother than blessing.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32