FullReads

Sylvia Gray was standing in her room, ready for the party. Before her stood Mrs. Spencer and Amelia Spencer and all the little Spencer girls, in an admiring semi-circle. There was another spectator. Outside, under the lilac bush, Old Lady Lloyd was standing. She could see Sylvia plainly, in her dainty dress, with the pale pink roses Old Lady Lloyd had left at the beech that day for her in her hair. Pink as they were, they were not so pink as her cheeks, and her eyes shone like stars. Amelia Spencer put up her hand to push back a rose that had fallen a little out of place, and the Old Lady envied her fiercely.

“That dress couldn’t have fitted better if it had been made for you,” said Mrs. Spencer admiringly. “Ain’t she lovely, Amelia? Who COULD have sent it?”

“Oh, I feel sure that Mrs. Moore was the fairy godmother,” said Sylvia. “There is nobody else who would. It was dear of her–she knew I wished so much to go to the party with Janet. I wish Aunty could see me now.” Sylvia gave a little sigh in spite of her joy. “There’s nobody else to care very much.”

Ah, Sylvia, you were wrong! There was somebody else–somebody who cared very much–an Old Lady, with eager, devouring eyes, who was standing under the lilac bush and who presently stole away through the moonlit orchard to the woods like a shadow, going home with a vision of you in your girlish beauty to companion her through the watches of that summer night.

IV. The August Chapter

One day the minister’s wife rushed in where Spencervale people had feared to tread, went boldly to Old Lady Lloyd, and asked her if she wouldn’t come to their Sewing Circle, which met fortnightly on Saturday afternoons.

“We are filling a box to send to our Trinidad missionary,” said the minister’s wife, “and we should be so pleased to have you come, Miss Lloyd.”

The Old Lady was on the point of refusing rather haughtily. Not that she was opposed to missions–or sewing circles either–quite the contrary, but she knew that each member of the Circle was expected to pay ten cents a week for the purpose of procuring sewing materials; and the poor Old Lady really did not see how she could afford it. But a sudden thought checked her refusal before it reached her lips.

“I suppose some of the young girls go to the Circle?” she said craftily.

“Oh, they all go,” said the minister’s wife. “Janet Moore and Miss Gray are our most enthusiastic members. It is very lovely of Miss Gray to give her Saturday afternoons–the only ones she has free from pupils–to our work. But she really has the sweetest disposition.”

“I’ll join your Circle,” said the Old Lady promptly. She was determined she would do it, if she had to live on two meals a day to save the necessary fee.

She went to the Sewing Circle at James Martin’s the next Saturday, and did the most beautiful hand sewing for them. She was so expert at it that she didn’t need to think about it at all, which was rather fortunate, for all her thoughts were taken up with Sylvia, who sat in the opposite corner with Janet Moore, her graceful hands busy with a little boy’s coarse gingham shirt. Nobody thought of introducing Sylvia to Old Lady Lloyd, and the Old Lady was glad of it. She sewed finely away, and listened with all her ears to the girlish chatter which went on in the opposite corner. One thing she found out–Sylvia’s birthday was the twentieth of August. And the Old Lady was straightway fired with a consuming wish to give Sylvia a birthday present. She lay awake most of the night wondering if she could do it, and most sorrowfully concluded that it was utterly out of the question, no matter how she might pinch and contrive. Old Lady Lloyd worried quite absurdly over this, and it haunted her like a spectre until the next Sewing Circle day.