The Beloved Stranger - By Grace Livingston Hill Page 0,52
with more boxes.
“We’re not going to open them tonight, Gemmie, no matter what it is,” said Miss Catherwood decidedly. “We’re just too tired to stand the sight of another lamp or pitcher or trumpet, whichever it is. We’ll let it go till morning.”
“But it’s flowers, ma’am,” protested Gemmie. “It says ‘Perishable’ on them, Miss Catherwood!”
“Flowers?” said the old lady sharply, giving a quick glance at Sherrill as if she would like to protect her. “Who would be sending flowers now? It must be a mistake!”
“It’s no mistake, ma’am; there’s one for each of you.
This small one is yours, and the big one is Miss Sherrill’s.”
She held the two boxes up to view.
Sherrill took her box wonderingly. It seemed as if this must be a ghost out of her dead happy past. For who would be sending her flowers today?
She untied the cord with trembling fingers, threw back the satiny folds of paper, and disclosed a great mass of the most gorgeous pansies she had ever seen. Pansies of every hue and mixture that a pansy could take on, from velvety black with a yellow eye down through the blues and yellows and purples and browns to clear unsullied white. There were masses of white ones arranged in rows down at the foot of the box, with a few sprays of exquisite blue forget-me-nots here and there, and the whole resting on a bed of delicate maiden hair fern.
The fragrance that came up from the flowers was like the woods in spring, a warm, fresh, mossy smell. Had pansies an odor like that? She had always thought of them as sturdy things, merry and cheery, that came up under the snow and popped out brightly all summer. But these great creatures in their velvet robes belonged to pansy royalty surely, and brought a breath of wildness and sweetness that rested her tired eyes and heart. She bent her face to touch their loveliness and drew a deep breath of their perfume.
The card was half hidden under a great brilliant yellow fellow touched with orange with a white plush eye. She pulled it out and read the writing with a catch in her breath and a sudden quick throb of joy in her heart. Why should she care so much? But it was so good to have flowers and a friend when she had thought all such things were over for her.
“I hope you are getting rested,” was written on the card just above his engraved name, Graham Copeland.
A sudden chuckle brought Sherrill back to the world again, the warm glow from her heart still showing in her cheeks, and a light of pleasure in her weary eyes.
“The old fox!” chuckled Aunt Pat.
“What is the matter?” asked Sherrill in quick alarm.
“Why, he’s sent me sweetheart roses! What do you know about that? Sweetheart roses for an old woman like me!” and she chuckled again.
“Oh, Aunt Pat! How lovely!” said Sherrill, coming near and sniffing the bouquet. “And there are forget-me-nots in yours, too! Isn’t it a darling bouquet?”
“Yes, and the fun of it is,” said Aunt Pat with a twinkle of sweet reminiscence in her eyes, “that I had a bouquet almost exactly like this when I went to my first party years ago with my best young man. Yes, identical, even to the lace paper frill around it, and the silver ribbon streamers!”
Aunt Pat held it close and took deep breaths with half-closed eyes and a sweet faraway look on her face.
In due time Patricia Catherwood came out of her brief trance and admired the box of pansies.
“Aunt Pat,” said Sherrill suddenly, her great box of sweetness still in her arms as she looked down at them a little fearfully, very wistfully, “he wouldn’t have sent these if he had—”
“No, of course not!” snapped the old lady. “I declare I’m ashamed of you, Sherrill Cameron. Can’t you ever trust anybody anymore just because one slim pretty man disappointed you? Just get on the job and learn how to judge real men, and you won’t have any more of that nonsense. Take those flowers to your room and study them, and see what you think about the man that sent them.”
“Oh, I trust him perfectly, Aunt Pat. I’m quite sure he is all right. I know he is! But I was afraid you would think—!”
“Now, look here, if you are going to keep charging me with all the vagaries that come into your head, ‘you and I will be two people!’ as