Silverbeach Manor Read Free Page B

the artist, and while Pansy
plays again by her request, she tells him in a low voice how she
has discovered this charming little damsel among the savages of
Polesheaton.
    "I have been
recommended to engage a young, lively companion by my physicians,"
she says. "I may probably take this girl to London with me. Her
face is like a picture."
    "I should like
to paint her as the 'Gipsy Countess'," says Langdale. "The
colouring of the face is perfect -- like the blush of a peach."
    So they
discuss her, as though, indeed, she were a painting, while on
Pansy's senses the glow of the fire that is lighted every gloaming,
the gleam of the silver tea service, the delicious tea and cream
and dainty cakes, the scent of the flowers in the vases, combine to
produce a rapturous impression. Happy the people who live day by
day in an atmosphere like this -- the people to whom sorrow and
depression and discontent must be utterly unknown!
    Cyril Langdale
pays her a few sweet compliments in his low, confidential voice, as
concerns her playing, and then sits down in the dusk at the piano,
and sings in a rich baritone voice an Italian love song.
    Pansy does not
understand a word, but she is entranced by his voice and the
tenderness of the melody, and she is startled as from a vision when
Mrs. Adair tells her the "dressing-bell" is ringing, and she had
better run home now, but she can come in and take tea with her
again tomorrow afternoon.
    Cyril Langdale
opens the door for her, and she runs upstairs alone to remove the
gorgeous tea gown and don once more her dreadful dress of violet
and blue that she now sees to be altogether too short, too baggy,
and deficient in taste and style. Yet this sort of thing is to be
her fate in wretched old humdrum Polesheaton. The angry tears rise
to Pansy's eyes as she drags her ill-fitting bodice together.
    Her aunt and
Deb are taking tea in the kitchen by the light of a solitary
candle. To Deb, set in the midst of a home after ten years of
workhouse life, there is quite a lavish grandeur about this evening
meal, by the side of a cosy fire, a round of toast in front of her,
and old Tab the cat blinking and winking close by. To Pansy,
however, fresh from the silver service and eggshell china, the
frosted cakes and luscious cream, the noiseless carpet and
long-haired Persian chinchilla kitten on the Eastern rug, the whole
scene seems common in the extreme, and she sits down in the
elbow-chair that was her grandfather's, feeling wretched.
    "Oh, Miss
Pansy, to think of your getting your dinner with the quality!"
cries Deb, excitedly. "Do tell us what they gave you, miss. I've
heard tell it's a gentleman cook just now at The Grange."
    "I will thank
you not to be so free, Deborah," says Pansy, with dignity. "There
is nothing at all strange in my being invited to The Grange. I
think you forget I am a lady myself -- a lady by birth."
    "I didn't
know, miss," says Deborah, meekly: "I begs pardon. Will I make you
some toast, Miss Pansy?"
    "No, indeed. I
have had my tea with Mrs. Adair, and she has asked me to spend
tomorrow afternoon with her as well."
    "Oh, but, my
dearie, that is the afternoon we make out the bills together! My
poor head would be lost without yours now, Pansy," says Aunt
Temperance. "I have to bake in the morning, otherwise we could do
the bills then."
    " Oh, the bills must wait!" says Pansy,
impatiently. "I am not going to miss a visit to The Grange for a
lot of stupid bills."
    "Can't I do
them, mistress?" asks Deb, anxiously. "I keeps my own accounts of
the shilling a week you gives me. I'll be ever so careful, if only
you'll try me, mistress. I does want to help you all I can."
    "So do I, of
course," says Pansy, now in tears. "You need not praise yourself at
my expense, Deborah -- putting me down before my own face like
that! I'll do your bills if they are so particular, Aunt Temperance
-- never mind about my losing the visit."
    "Nay, my
dearie, you get but little pleasure. The bills must just wait,"
says