A Little Girl of Long Ago - Amanda Minnie Douglas (top 100 novels of all time txt) 📗

of him."

They were English novels by a Miss Pickering, long since forgotten, while less worthy ones are remembered.

"We'll walk up after supper and change them," continued Cousin Jennie.

But visitors came in shortly afterward to stay to supper. People were not specially invited then; and the hostess did not expect to prepare a feast on ordinary occasions. So Jennie said Hanny might go up alone, if she didn't mind.

She started gladly, yet a sense of diffidence oppressed her as she stood at the door, a half guilty consciousness, as if she had no right to the secret Mrs. Clemm was trying so assiduously to hide.

The poet was pacing up and down the room; but his pallid face and strange, shining eyes seemed looking out from some other world. Mrs. Clemm sat by the window with a magazine in her hand.

Hanny preferred her request timidly.

"Oh, come in and hunt them up. Your cousin is quite welcome to anything. Then there are some upstairs, though I brought down that pile over in the corner this very morning."

The corner looked attractive. Hanny went thither, and knelt down on the checked matting. There were two books of engravings containing portraits of famous people, some old volumes of verse, some new ones, and magazines.

The volumes she wanted were not among them. But she exhumed something else that made her forget the slight, nervous man pacing up and down, and the woman at the window. Turning the leaves of an old novel that had lost one cover, she came across the name of one of her heroes, "Richard of the Lion Heart." She had a passion, just then, for English history. And there was Bulwer's "White Rose of England," in paper covers with a Harper imprint.

"Could I take these beside?" she asked, with some hesitation.

He glanced over at them as he came to that end of the room.

"Those old novels? Yes. Do they let you read novels?"

"I read almost anything," and Hanny glanced up with rising colour. "But there are not so many books up here--I live in New York," she added, by way of explanation.

A half smile crossed his face, but its melancholy haunted the little girl long afterward.

Then she went over to the closet, and soon found her missing volumes, and uttered her gentle Good-afternoon. Mrs. Clemm had folded her sewing, and came out on the porch where the water-pail stood empty, so she started to the well.

"Please thank your cousin for her kindness," she said in a soft tone. "I am glad she is fond of books."

The modern realistic school, or even the analytic school, would flout Madame Cottin's old novel of "The Saracen" to-day. Perhaps in the year two thousand the novels of to-day will be wondered at. The next morning, the little girl was up in her eyrie in the corner of the porch, and began her story. She was deeply interested in the Crusaders as well. Richard, Saladin, and his noble and knightly brother Melek held her spell-bound. She let the patchwork lie unheeded.

Queen Joan, Richard's sister, beautiful and unfortunate in her marriage, almost a prisoner for years, rescued and taken to the Holy Land in company with Berengaria, and treated with Oriental suavity and honour, and loved by Melek Adel, indeed, almost married to him, though history considers it only as one of the many feints of Eastern diplomacy, roused all Hanny's youthful ardour. And Saladin's young nephew, taking knighthood at Richard's hands on Easter morning, was so striking a picture that the child could not understand why Turks and Christians should be bitter enemies, when friendships like this could be cemented, and apparently appreciated by men of such qualities.

She lost interest in the "Grumbler," and I am afraid her mind wandered as she read aloud. She was really glad that for several days there were no children to play with. She sat out of doors, and was pretty sure that would answer Doctor Joe's requirements; and the Major took her out driving, but she smuggled in her book. She was not quite so pale, though that might have been due to sun-burn.

She had just finished her enchanting story one morning, and was glancing idly down the hill, watching the toilers who bent over as if they were carrying heavy loads, or drawing something behind them. Physical culture had not yet been applied to the fine art of walking.

A barouche, drawn by two nodding horses, came slowly along. There were four ladies in it; but one especially attracted the child. She wore a gown of softest cerulean blue, a bonnet of blue crape with delicate pink roses, and a large bow of airy tulle tied under her chin. Her long ringlets, the fashion of the day, drooped about her lovely face, that smiled and dimpled as she talked. Her hands were daintily gloved, and one held her parasol up high so she could glance about. Hanny was quite sure she espied her, for her companion leaned out and looked also.

She left the child in a daze as she went by. Hanny had a secret, exultant consciousness that she had seen her ideal poet; then she smiled and wondered if she could write poems. Dolly was quite as pretty, but she couldn't; and Margaret was handsomer. She could not quite associate the sad, abstracted man up the road with "Annabel Lee." What a puzzle it all was!

She went downstairs presently, and was sitting on the area steps watching Cousin Jennie iron, when the tall figure in her shabby black hat and veil, which she invariably wore, came up the outer steps. Hanny ran to open the gate.

Mrs. Clemm was always quietly dignified. It was the intangible good breeding that distinguished her from the ordinary country-folk. She had a small tin kettle in her hand, and her manner was apologetic.

"They had some unexpected visitors from the city, dear friends of Eddie's" (she oftener called him that than any other name, and she often said "My poor dear Eddie!"). "Could they spare her some milk, and a few eggs? They had no milk at the store."

"With pleasure," said Jennie, who went to the milk-room, and cast a glance around to see if there was not something else that would help out the feast.

The little girl wanted to ask some questions, but she hesitated from diffidence.

She wondered afterward how the quiet, almost listless woman could concoct dainty feasts for these illustrious people out of her poverty; for they were illustrious in their day. Were the wit and poesy and knowledge the successive desserts, and bright gossip the sparkle of the Barmecide wine? She thought of the little cottage, when she read of Madame Scarron among the French wits.

She described them to Cousin Jennie when the tall black figure was going slowly up the road.

"Yes, they have a good many visitors," said Jennie. "They did last summer, when poor Mrs. Poe was alive."

"Was _she_ very beautiful?"

"Oh, child, beauty isn't everything!" and Jennie smiled. "Yes; it was said she was. But she was so thin and pale. She used to sit out there on the porch, wrapped in a white shawl, with his arm about her, or her head resting on his shoulder. You see no one knew much about them then, and they kept so to themselves. Then there is his unfortunate habit, that you cannot help feeling ought not to belong to a person of his intelligence. It is a great pity."

Hanny sighed. She was to know a great deal more about the world later on, and the appreciation that was spread as a garment about the poet when his life's fitful fever ended.

There was an influx of quite elderly people one afternoon; and Hanny, gathering up some books, stole up to the little cottage, quite assured no one would need her, or even miss her.

The corner of books had been "cleared up." In the wide fireplace, there was a jar of feathery asparagus, and on the table a vase of flowers. There were a number of pictures, Hanny noticed. She had hardly glanced about the room before,--the plain, low-ceiled room to which people were to make pilgrimages as time went on.

The poet sat by the table in a dreamy, indolent mood.

"Did you find what you wanted the other day?" he asked gently.

"Oh, yes! And I have read 'The Saracen.' It interested me so, I couldn't leave it a moment. I didn't want to like Saladin so much; but I had to. But I shall never give up Richard."

He smiled a little at that, kindly, cordially, and her heart warmed to him. The pervasive eyes were so deep and beautiful! In spite of the pallor and attenuation, the face had a rare charm.

"So Richard is your hero? Well, you will doubtless change your heroes a good many times before you get through with life. I think I had a boy's fancy for Saladin once. Yet heroes come to be quite common-place people after all. I wonder if I have any more that you would like?"

Hanny said they had several books yet, and she was going down to West Farms in a few days. She wanted to finish "The White Rose of England."

"History in romance,--I dare say that suits young people best."

She stood in a sort of vague uncertainty.

"Well?" in a voice of suggestive inquiry, as if she might ask him anything.

"Oh!" she cried, summoning all her courage, and flushing as she did so, "will you please tell me who the pretty lady in blue was, who came up the other day in the carriage? She looked like a poet!"

He did laugh then, softly, as if laughing was a little strange.

"Is that your idea of a poet? Well, she _is_ one,--an airy, light-winged poet with dainty conceits, and a charming woman, too. I must tell her she captured you at sight. That is Frances Sargent Osgood. And beside her sat Mrs. Gove Nichols, one of the new lights. Stay, I think I can find a poem or two of Fanny Osgood's for you."

He hunted up two or three magazines. Hanny sat down on the door-sill; it was so softly, so enchantingly bright out-of-doors, and the room a little gloomy. She wanted to have a glimpse of sunshine, for Mrs. Osgood looked as if she belonged to the brighter world.

They were dainty and bright. One was set to music afterward; and the little girl learned to sing it very prettily:--


"I've something sweet to tell you,
And the secret you must keep,
For remember, if it isn't night,
I'm talking in my sleep."


Then they talked about poetry. I dare say he was amused at a little girl whose ideal poem was "Genevieve," by Coleridge, and who knew "Christobel," "The Ancient Mariner," and "The Lady of the Lake" half by heart. When, in her young womanhood, she read some of his sharp, scathing criticisms, she wondered at his sweetness that afternoon. With a little more courage, she would have asked him what was really meant by "the high-born kinsman;" but she did not know as it was quite proper to talk to him about his own verses.

The wood-robins were singing in the tall trees, and the sun made dancing shadows on the stoop that was always clean as a floor. Mrs. Clemm brought her splint rocker out, and begged her to