Milly Darrell; And Other Tales Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 edition. Excerpt: ...orphaned girl of seventeen years old, for the shadow of a great sorrow was still upon her; yet she brightened the old house by her presence in a greater degree than Philip Eayner could have imagined possible. It was a new thing to come home and see her sitting in the grim wainscoted parlour; it made his coming home something different from what it had been. He used to be startled by finding himself thinking of this dark-eyed Catherine sometimes in business hours, when he had a file of accounts or a ponderous ledger before him. The days seemed longer to him than of old, and he wondered at his eagerness to go home to the quiet dinner and long quiet evening, when Catherine sat at a little table near the old man, busy with some complicated piece of embroidery, for which, with all other delicate kinds of fancy work, she had an especial genius. There would be no difficulty about her getting her own living by and by, Samuel Rayner said, seeing how industrious the girl was. Philip thought that she might never have any occasion to earn a living for herself. It would have seemed a hard thing for one so tender and gentle to be turned adrift upon a cold cruel world. And what could they do without her in that dreary old house, having once known the magical brightening influence of her presence? She had a hundred little arts by which a woman can embellish the dullest home, and little by little, as she found herself privileged to do these things, exercised her pretty trivial arts. Quaint old China jars and bottles, and cups and tea-pots, that had been hidden away in remote cupboards, blackened with the dust of ages, came out of their hiding-places, and were placed about, here and there, making patches of light and colour in the darksome rooms. The...