It lighted up the red curtains and made a halo round good Nurse Lucy's
head as she bent over her sewing; it played on the farmer's silver-bowed
spectacles as he pored with knitted brows and earnest look over the
weekly paper which he had brought from the village. The good, kind
farmer! Hilda gazed at him as he sat all unconscious, and wondered why
she had not seen at once how handsome he really was. The broad forehead,
with its deep, thoughtful furrows; the keen, yet kindly blue eyes; the
"sable-silvered" hair and beard, which, if not exactly smooth, were
still so picturesque, so leonine; the firm, perhaps obstinate, mouth,
which could speak so wisely and smile so cordially,--all these combined
to make up what the newspapers would call a "singularly attractive
exterior." And "_Oh!_ how good he has been to me!" thought Hilda. "I
believe he is the best man in the world, next to papa." Then she thought
of Madge again, and tried to fancy her in her Redfern hat,--pretty
Madge, with her black eyes and curly fringe, under the "simplicity" of
the heaven-aspiring wings and bows; and as she smiled at the image,
there rose beside it the fair head of Pink Chirk, looking out like a
white rose from the depths of her dingy straw tunnel. Then she fancied
herself saying airily (she knew _just_ how she used to say it), "The
_little_ things, my dear, are the _only_ things!" and then she laughed
aloud at the very funniness of it.
"Hut! tut!" said Farmer Hartley, looking up from his paper with a smile.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110