It was sunset. The day had been one of the sultriest of August. It would
seem as if the fierce alembic of the last twenty-four hours had melted it
like the pearl in the golden cup of Cleopatra, and it lay in the West a
fused mass of transparent brightness. The reflection from the edges of a
hundred clouds wandered hither and thither, over rock and tree and flower, giving a strange, unearthly brilliancy to the most familiar things.
A group of children had gathered about their mother in the summer-house of
a garden which faced the sunset sky. The house was one of those square, stately, wooden structures, white, with green blinds, in which of old times the better classes of New England delighted, and which remain to us as memorials of a respectable past. It stood under the arches of two gigantic elms, and was flanked on either side with gardens and grounds which seemed designed on purpose for hospitality and family freedom.
The evening light colored huge bosquets of petunias, which stood with
their white or crimson faces looking westward, as if they were thinking
creatures. It illumined flame-colored verbenas, and tall columns of pink
and snowy phloxes, and hedges of August roses, making them radiant as the
flowers of a dream.
The group in the summer-house requires more particular attention. The
father and mother, whom we shall call Albert and Olivia, were of the
wealthiest class of the neighbouring city, and had been induced by the
facility of railroad travelling, and a sensible way of viewing things, to
fix their permanent residence in the quiet little village of Q----. Albert
had nothing in him different from multitudes of hearty, joyous, healthily
constituted men, who subsist upon daily newspapers, and find the world a
most comfortable place to live in. As to Olivia, she was in the warm noon
of life, and a picture of vitality and enjoyment. A plump, firm cheek, a
dark eye, a motherly fulness of form, spoke the being made to receive and
enjoy the things of earth, the warm-hearted wife, the indulgent mother, the hospitable mistress of the mansion. It is true that the smile on the lip had something of earthly pride blended with womanly sweetness,--the pride of one who has as yet known only prosperity and success, to whom no mischance has yet shown the frail basis on which human hopes are built. Her foot had as yet trod only the high places of life, but she walked there with a natural grace and nobleness that made every one feel that she was made for them and they for her.
Around the parents were gathered at this moment a charming group of
children, who with much merriment were proceeding to undo a bundle the
father had just brought from the city.
"Here, Rose," said little Amy, a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired pet, who seemed
to be a privileged character, "let _me_ come; don't be all night with your
orderly ways; let me cut that string." A sharp flash of the scissors, a
quick report of the bursting string, and the package lay opened to the
little marauder. Rose drew back, smiled, and gave an indulgent look at
her eager younger sister and the two little ones who immediately gathered
around. She was one of those calm, thoughtful, womanly young girls, that
seem born for pattern elder sisters, and for the stay and support of
mothers' hearts. She watched with a gentle, quiet curiosity the quick and
eager fingers that soon were busy in exposing the mysteries of the parcel.
"There's a dress for Rose," said Amy, triumphantly drawing out a delicate
muslin; "I can always tell what's for her."
"How?" put in the father, who stood regarding the proceeding with that air
of amused superiority with which the wearers of broadcloth look down on the
mysteries of muslin and barége.
"How?" said Amy, "why, because they look just like her. If I were to see
that lilac muslin in China, I should say it was meant for Rose. Now this is
mine, I know,--this bright pink; isn't it, mamma? No half shades about me!"
"No, indeed," said her mother; "that is your greatest fault, Amy."