Doing and Dreaming, by Edward Garrett (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. AT NUMBER TWO. 'OBODY seemed to hear Lucy Withers' return home. She had to find her way through the darkness as best she could. Her mother and brother and sister were seated at table. Something in the manner of her entrance made them all look up, as if they thought she had some news to tell, or something to show. And perhaps she had; for if a fading flower in the hand is something, surely even a passing pleasure in the heart is something too. There was no slovenliness about the apart- 48 ment or the table arrangements. Their deficiencies were simply those sure to show sooner or later in households where money is scarce and everybody is either too busy or too tired for the finer details of domestic care. It might be that the utter absence of any impromptu dash of beauty and brightness revealed an absorption and weariness of hearts as well as hands. The dim blue china, the dull metal teapot, the worn drab carpet on the floor, and the washed-out chintz on the chairs, were all in a sad harmony with the scared little woman who presided, with the grandly-outlined but gaunt young woman who was cutting the bread and butter, and with the bright, eager, worn face of the lad, who was just lifting the kettle from the hob. Lucy told her little story of her accident and her succour. Whatever was the reasonwhy no visitors ever came to Denver Corner, and why a family of young and healthy people mingled in no sort of society, it certainly appeared only to have bound them closer together. It was wonderful what little things they told each other. They seemed to tell everything. But they did not. If the accident had happened without the succour, Lucy would have kept it to herself. Yet the sympathy between them must have lain far below the surface, since it certain...