"How glad I am," Charlotte said, soon after her arrival, standing by a
window with kind Mrs. Catesby, "to come down here where it is spring. I
could never have borne it--to put Granny away under the snow. She didn't
like the snow, though she never said so. Are those camellias down by the
hedge? Oh, may I go out and pick some--for Granny?"
"I thought you might like them--and might want to pick them yourself, or
I should have had them ready. I sent for no other flowers. I remember my
mother telling me how Madam Chase loved them--as she herself did."
From an upper window, in the room to which he had been assigned, Leaver
saw Charlotte go down the garden path to the hedge, there to fill a small
basket with the snowy blooms. When she turned to go back to the house she
found him beside her.
"I see now why you wanted no other flowers," he said, as he took the
basket. "These are like her--fair and pure and fragile."
"She was fond of them. She wore them in her hair when she was a girl.
They have no fragrance; that is why I want them for her now. How people
can bear strong, sweet flowers around their dead I can never understand."
"I have always wondered at that, too," Leaver admitted. "My mother had
the same feeling." He looked closely at Charlotte's face, as the bright
sunlight of the Southern spring morning fell upon it.
Pages:
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288