Only Henrietta (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. 1919 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVIII SILVERY WATERS Wildwood cottage was not elaborate of its kind, but it was complete and picturesque. It stood a mile back from the little village known as The Falls, isolated in a forest of pines. Judge Lovell enjoyed its seclusion. He usually spent two months of the year in his mountain home, and the house had been built and furnished for comfort. A wide veranda, inviting, with deep chairs and hammocks, ran round three sides. The west veranda boasted a novelty that charmed Henrietta: an open fireplace large enough to accommodate four-foot logs. She could scarcely await the coming of the doctor and the girls. The fire was to be lighted for the first time in their honor. Henrietta scarcely knew which she loved best, the broad verandas, or the long living-room with its cheerful rugs and bright chintzes. The room appealed to her aesthetic sense. She moved about among the books and pictures, the charming furniture, with a feeling of proprietorship. Mrs. Kirby sometimes watched her in amazement. Henrietta was always so sure of herself, her effects. Where had she learned that yellow flowers should be arranged in the brown Japanese basket; the columbines in the blue pottery bowl? Was it intuition, race -- or merely an eye for the beautiful? "I like to watch your hands when you arrange flowers, Henrietta," Dick said to her one day soon after his arrival. "You touch the flowers so respectfully." "Do I?" she responded with brightening eyes. "I'm glad. That is the way I feel about them. I couldn't fill a vase with a lot of flowers any more than I could stuff this lovely big room with people. They'd suffocate. So would my posies." But flowers were not the only things Henrietta touched respectfully. There was a caress in her fingers as...