Flory

“ The stars were all invisible. The croton bushes, by day hideous things like jaundiced laurels, were changed by the moon into jagged black and white designs like fantastic wood-cuts. By the compound fence two Dravidian coolies were walking down the road, transfigured, their white rags gleaming. Through the tepid air the scent streamed from the frangipani trees like some intolerable compound out of a penny-in- the-slot machine.
'Look at the moon, just look at it!' Flory said. 'It's like a white sun. ”

“ Miss Florence—yes, I knew you would feel so, mother. Does it not make your head feel better to see such a beautiful flower? Now you will not look so longingly at the flowers in the market, for we have a rose that is handsomer than any of them. Why, it seems to me it is worth as much to us as our whole little garden used to be. Only see how many buds there are! ”

“ Taking her in one arm and giving his wife the other, he took them to the parlor and after introducing them, said, "These are my Rose and Lilly, and in granting your desire to inform you where you may be able to obtain more of the same species, I have only to say that profiting by my experience, you must select your rose from the purest love, and you will never feel its thorn, and fairer than any hot-house plant will bloom the lily of your household." ”

“ The expression of the eyes was a rub of pastel from a master's thumb; the whole head, stamped with a sort of showy suffering, had gained a fineness from what she had passed through. Yes, Flora was settled for life--nothing could hurt her further. I foresaw the particular praise she would mostly incur--she would be invariably "interesting." She would charm with her pathos more even than she had charmed with her pleasure. For herself above all she was fixed for ever, rescued from all change and ransomed from all doubt. ”

“ You don't call visiting old women and sickly children, and questioning a prim class of tidy girls in a school-room, seeing anything of society? Have you no neighbours in your own rank of life within ten miles round?"
"Not many," replied Flora; "but a few. There's the clergyman--you have seen him--good old Mr. Ward--"
"Oh yes, I have seen him,--the bald-headed little man, with such a benevolent look and patronising smile, that I quite expected him to pat me on the head and say, 'There's a good little dear!'"
"Naughty little dear, I should say," laughed Flora. ”

“ Everybody has a favourite flower, I suppose—the white Iris is mine—the Fleur-de-lys of France—the lily of Florence. Nothing can be more refined and lovely than the thin, translucent petals. To see these flowers at their best, one must get up and go into the garden at five o’clock on some fine morning at the end of May. I did it once, and as I walked beside their shining rows in the clear daylight, I felt there were no such pearly shadows, nor any such strange purity in the whiteness of other flowers. ”

“ Florio was not quite sure that he fully understood all that was said to him, but he was delighted at the idea of leaving Fuss, and said so.
Florella smiled upon him, and continued, "It may not be so easy as you imagine; those who serve me have to stand a test of faithfulness, energy, and courage. Our life seems one of careless mirth, but it is not so. We, of course, are happy, and enjoy ourselves; but we have many duties, and are not altogether free, as would be supposed. I am at the head of this little band. We are Flower Fairies, cousins to the Wind Fairies and Herb Elves. ”

“ Lying down on her rock, she told over with the rapture of a devotee the divine excellencies of Flora Le Pettit; her radiance, her swinging, shining curls, the wings that spread from her fair arms, the light that gleamed on her bright brow and in her glancing eyes, but it was not Flora, but Loveday, who danced before her mind's eye in white raiment, and held the sorrows of the South in her eyes and the joy of youth on her lips. Flora was the excuse for that new Loveday, as the beloved is ever the excuse for the raptures transmuting the lover. ”

“ Our cousin the curate no sooner saw the tropical stranger, and marked his impression upon Flora, than he felt the end. As the shaft struck his heart, his smile was sweeter, and his homage even more poetic and reverential. I doubt if Flora understood him or herself. She did not know, what he instinctively perceived, that she loved him less. But there are no degrees in love; when it is less than absolute and supreme, it is nothing. Our cousin and Flora were not formally engaged, but their betrothal was understood by all of us as a thing of course. ”

“ Flora's engagement to ride with young Fernwoodlee and the meet at Kilhenzie, were committed to oblivion, and were utterly forgotten, as she sat alone, full of thought, on the old mossgrown garden-seat, with the autumn leaves whirling round her.
Through the branches of the stripped trees on which the rooks were cawing, the sunlight fell aslant upon the copper gnomon of the ancient sun and moon dial, which occupied the centre of the quaint Scoto-French garden, and round the pedestal of which Quentin, to please her, during the last spring, had trained a creeping plant. ”

“ But as easily could that roaring cataract break the arch of the rainbow that glistens at its foot, as the torrent of eloquence to which she listened warp the settled judgment of the parent. She needed not to be persuaded that Sir Amery loved--she believed Flora to be worthy of the warmest affection which ever glowed in the heart of man; but no sentence which he uttered altered her conviction that he was one who, however gifted with earthly wisdom, was yet a stranger to the knowledge which alone can make man wise unto salvation. ”

“ Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her feel in my admiration and wonder as I sat at supper with four tall candles and with my pupil, in a high chair and a bib, brightly facing me, between them, over bread and milk. There were naturally things that in Flora’s presence could pass between us only as prodigious and gratified looks, obscure and roundabout allusions.
“And the little boy—does he look like her? Is he too so very remarkable?”
One wouldn’t flatter a child. ”

“ Florry, dear Florry! turn to God for comfort and succor in this hour of need. He will enable you to bear this trial, and go steadily on in the path of duty."
"Mary, I have no incitement to exertion; nothing to anticipate. My future is blank and dreary. I know my lot in life; I have nothing to hope for."
"Not so, Florry. Your future life will be an active one. Are we not dependent on our exertions for subsistence? and does not our little school open to-morrow? Cheer up, darling all may yet be bright. ”

“ Then into a cheerful place they went, where were many groups of flowers, among whose leaves sat the child Elves, and learned from their flower-books all that Fairy hands had written there. Some studied how to watch the tender buds, when to spread them to the sunlight, and when to shelter them from rain; how to guard the ripening seeds, and when to lay them in the warm earth or send them on the summer wind to far off hills and valleys, where other Fairy hands would tend and cherish them, till a sisterhood of happy flowers sprang up to beautify and gladden the lonely spot where they had fallen. ”

“ A curtain of pale green silk fell over the sash-door, and close behind it stood a garden-chair, overhung by the blossoming tendrils of a passion-flower. Florence sat down in the chair and her head drooped fainting to one hand. There was something in the scent of the various plants blossoming around that reminded her of that wedding-morning when the air was literally burthened with like fragrance. ”

“ Do you not recognize a similitude to the flower-girl of the library? This is Flora herself, whose marble hands are dripping with flowers, and whose lips, white and voiceless as they are, are wearing the sweetness and freshness of eternal youth. Do you not trace a resemblance to yourself in those pure and graceful features, which, even in marble, breathe the eloquence of love? How charmingly the moonbeams play upon her brow! how lovingly they linger on her neck of snow! ”

“ Flora's unfinished embroidery still remained in the frame, with the needle in the last stitch of a blue forget-me-not. Over the mirror was a cluster of blush-roses she had made. On the wall was a spray of sea-moss she had pressed and surrounded with a garland of small shells. By the door was a vine she had transplanted from the woods; and under a tree opposite was a turf seat where she used to sit sketching the cottage, and Tulee, and Thistle, and baskets of wild-flowers she had gathered. ”

“ A great deal came and went between us without profaning the occasion, so that I could feel at the end of twenty minutes as if I knew almost everything he might in kindness have to tell me; knew even why Flora, while I stared at her from the stalls, had misled me by the use of ivory and crystal and by appearing to recognise me and smile. She leaned back in her chair in luxurious ease: I had from the first become aware that the way she fingered her pearls was a sharp image of the wedded state. ”

“ These women, too, seemed to enjoy greatly any sort of row and were always ready to combine together to make awful scenes to the luckless girl on incredibly flimsy pretences. Thus Flora on one occasion had been reduced to rage and despair, had her most secret feelings lacerated, had obtained a view of the utmost baseness to which common human nature can descend--I won't say _a propos de bottes_ as the French would excellently put it, but literally _a propos_ of some mislaid cheap lace trimmings for a nightgown the romping one was making for herself. ”

“ No one here holds the mirrors, yet the head is bent and the eyes are turned as if some one stood by to catch the glance, and stretch a hand for the flowers; for whilst with her left Flora strives by an intricate and momentary play of the fingers, to keep fast the muslin that falls from her shoulder and the damask that slips from her form, with the other she presents a handful of roses, jessamines, and violets to an unseen lover. ”

“ She went into the woods and brought back an armful of maple leaves and, with Flora's melancholy assistance, fastened them against the walls and over the doors, hiding, to some extent, the frieze of fans and the yellow pennons of the Cause. She even took down the muslin curtains and washed and ironed them herself, and put them up again, crisp and dainty. The little room bloomed with her joy. When she sat down to "polish" her article she kept jumping up every few minutes to move a bowl of flowers, or put an extra book on the mantelpiece. ”

“ The mistress passed on to the queen of the garden, La Rosiere, fragrant beyond all other roses, its reflexed, claret-coloured petals soft and velvety, its leaves—when did a rose’s greenery fail to be its perfect complement?—tinged underneath with a faint blush of its own deep colour. ”

“ Flora, who was imaginative and poetical, had drawn in her mind so touching, a picture of the pale widow and her golden-haired cherubs, had rehearsed to herself so often the scene of the meeting, that she had worked herself into a state of eager impatience. Unable to settle steadily to anything, she fluttered from room to room, now altering the arrangement of the flowers with which she had adorned the widow's pretty boudoir, now bringing some elegant trifle of her own to add to the beauty of the effect. ”

“ Many of the people have brought flowers with them, and as the procession approaches they cast them loosely in the air, out of which they descend in a shower of many colours to carpet the way, along which Gloria must pass, with their bright and variegated bloom. ”

“ I’m afraid I stared at Florey. I had lived too long in the forest: the staring habit, so disconcerting to tenderfeet on their first acquaintance with the mountain people, was surely upon me. I think that the school of the forest teaches, first of all, to look long and sharply while you have a chance. The naturalist who follows the trail of wild game, even the sportsman knows this same fact—for the wild creatures are incredibly furtive and give one only a second’s glimpse. I instinctively tried to learn all I could of the gray old servant in the instant that I shook his hand. ”

“ Go, and God be with you! Give old Flor's love to your countess, and to the darling children; tell them that Flor has no other wish on earth, but that the whole world might know Count Ernest's heart as she knows it, and then the whole world would be ready to lay their hands beneath your feet, as she is.'"
"He broke away from me, and ordered his horses to meet him at the top of the walk that leads up the forest--He walked on before, and I heard people say that he had wandered about the forest, taking leave of the spots he loved, and now looked upon for the last time. ”

“ Around the feet of the tiny nut-brown maiden, with her odd high cap, grew tall heather and feathery ferns, with here and there a clump of flame-shaped lilies. When snow was on the ground outside Rosy always loved to gaze at this pretty scene, and to fancy herself stepping over the frame to have a chat about vegetables, and a ramble in the forest with Annette. ”

“ Florelle looked like a fairy in a short little white frock, all fine muslin and lace, with ruffles and frills that stood out in every direction. The overdressed little midget was delighted with her appearance, and pranced around in front of the mirror admiring herself. ”