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Page 35
CHAPTER XI.
THE LADY IN BLACK.
"I 've had a little adventure," said Polly to her mother one afternoon.
"I went out, for the sake of the ride, on the Sutler Street cable-cars
with Milly Foster. When we came to the end of the line, Milly walked
down to Greary Street to take her car home. I went with her to the
corner, and as I was coming back I saw a lady in black alighting from
an elegant carriage. She had a coachman and a footman, both with weeds
on their hats, and she seemed very sad and grave; but she had such a
sweet, beautiful face that I was sorry for her the first moment I
looked at her. She walked along in front of me toward the cemetery,
and there we met those boys that stand about the gate with bouquets.
She glanced at the flowers as if she would like to buy some, but you
know how hideous they always are, every color of the rainbow crowded in
tightly together, and she looked away, dissatisfied. I don't know why
she had n't brought some with her,--she looked rich enough to buy a
whole conservatory; perhaps she had n't expected to drive there.
However, Milly Foster had given me a whole armful of beautiful
flowers,--you know she has a 'white garden:' there were white sweet
peas, Lamarque roses, and three stalks of snowy Eucharist lilies. I
need n't tell my own mother that I did n't stop to think twice; I just
stepped up to her and said, 'I should like to give you my flowers,
please. I don't need them, and I am sure they are just sweet and
lovely enough for the place you want to lay them.'
"The tears came into her eyes,--she was just ready to cry at anything,
you know,--and she took them at once, and said, squeezing my hand very
tightly, 'I will take them, dear. The grave of my own, and my only,
little girl lies far away from this,--the snow is falling on it
to-day,--but whenever I cannot give the flowers to her, I always find
the resting-places of other children, and lay them there. I know it
makes her happy, for she was born on Christmas Day, and she was full of
the Christmas spirit, always thinking of other people, never of
herself.'
"She did look so pale, and sad, and sweet, that I began to think of you
without your troublesome Polly, or your troublesome Polly without you;
and she was pleased with the flowers and glad that I understood, and
willing to love anything that was a girl or that was young,--oh, you
know, mamacita,--and so I began to cry a little, too; and the first
thing I knew I kissed her, which was most informal, if not positively
impertinent. But she seemed to like it, for she kissed me back again,
and I ran and jumped on the car, and here I am! You will have to eat
your dinner without any flowers, madam, for you have a vulgarly strong,
healthy daughter, and the poor lady in black has n't."
This was Polly's first impression of "the lady in black," and thus
began an acquaintance which was destined before many months to play a
very important part in Polly's fortunes and misfortunes.
What the lady in black thought of Polly, then and subsequently, was
told at her own fireside, where she sat, some six weeks later, chatting
over an after-dinner cup of coffee with her brother-in-law.
"Take the armchair, John," said Mrs. Bird; "for I have 'lots to tell
you,' as the young folks say. I was in the Children's Hospital about
five o'clock to-day. I have n't been there for three months, and I
felt guilty about it. The matron asked me to go upstairs into the
children's sitting-room, the one Donald and I fitted up in memory of
Carol. She said that a young lady was telling stories to the children,
but that I might go right up and walk in. I opened the door softly,
though I don't think the children would have noticed if I had fired a
cannon in their midst, and stood there, spellbound by the loveliest,
most touching scene I ever witnessed. The room has an open fire, and
in a low chair, with the firelight shining on her face, sat that
charming, impulsive girl who gave me the flowers at the cemetery--I
told you about her. She was telling stories to the children. There
were fifteen or twenty of them in the room, all the semi-invalids and
convalescents, I should think, and they were gathered about her like
flies round a saucer of honey. Every child that could, was doing its
best to get a bit of her dress to touch, or a finger of her hand to
hold, or an inch of her chair to lean upon. They were the usual pale,
weary-looking children, most of them with splints and weights and
crutches, and through the folding-doors that opened into the next room
I could see three more tiny things sitting up in their cots and
drinking in every word with eagerness and transport.
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