The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1875-05-21
M i s. g eIlaxae . III s.
Grace Eii7asdals'a Lily
BY MISE ROSE PORTER.
CHAPTER l.

1t was small brown house, down at the
end OF the village street, where Miss Grace
Hinsdale lived house as unpretendine
and prosaic in its outward appearance as
was M ISIS Grace, its mistress, in her out
ward seeming; and yet both house and
mistress revealed, even to q casual obsery-
er, something not all prosaic. In the
house this shone out from southern win
dow, where all the winter long, like smiles
OF the vanished summer, plants had I'M.
folded, day after day, fresh green leaves,
and opened out promise buds that became
flower blooms; while in Miss Grace it was
revealed through the heart-warmth that
shone III her smile and sounded in her
kindly voice. Miss Grace was a New
England woman, slow-oi-speech woman
that lnvoluntarily one numbered AMONG
that class of jewellers on our rugged coast
OF whom Emerson SO ruthlessly saws
New England people, whose climate is so
cold, do not like to open their mouths very
wide" BE this as it may, when they do
open their mouths, who speak to such
good purpose as the daughters of New
England.
But to return to Miss Grace and her
"window garden" How tenderly she had
watched these plants all through the zero
weather of the mid-winter days, moving
now one, then another, that every ray of the
brief sunshine hours might warm the
dear things" and with what care, with
soft sponge and water, from which the ice
chill had been taken, every Saturday
morning she wiped the tiny dust specks
from the glossy green leaves. What mys-
FERROUS little humps of snowy cotton pro-
lected from every crack in the somewhat
loosely-titting easement, through which
otherwise "a breath of the Frost Kingn
might have stolen; and when March came
how amply all Miss Grace's care seemed
rewarded, for the huge geranium was all
aglow with itsg great branches ofscarlet flow
ers, the delicate tuchsia stems hung heavy
with their bell-like blooms-eyen the one
little bud on the sickly rose tree. that Miss
Grace had watched with especial care,
gave broad hint that soon it would open
| into a rose.
Why then did shadow fiji across Miss
Grace's face as she looked at her plants ?
What disappointed her 4? Had they not
all tiourished beyond her highest hopesY
All, no the broad leaved Gala, it was de-
linquent. The Gala, whose pure white,
queenly blossom with its golden sceptre,
Miss Grace had wanted more than any
bloom her plants could yield-wanted foi
n day near at hand-and the bud, it un-
folded so slowly, letting only shadow
outline Of its spotless purity peep through
the green unfolding leaves.
81 greatly fear it will not be out in
time," Miss Grace murmured to herself as
she pushed aside geranium and rose tree
that more sunlight might fall on the
lily.
Now the reason she wanted it was this
Prosaic and of few words, as Miss Grace
Hinsdale certainly was, cold as her man.
ner seemed, her heart was full of sweet
charities, and many and many were the
deeds she planned there-deeds that il
her delicate gentleness were like dainties
poems. Chief among these plans, this
long ago March time of which we tell, wa.
her hope for the opening lily blossom
How we do forget rs we meet in tho
crowded, jostling lifeways, these cold
stern-seeming women. like Miss Grace
Hinsdale, those words OF the poets song
"And they called her cold; God knows. Tn
| derneath the winter SHOWS
The invisible hearts of flowers gov ripe 70
blossoming
And the lives that look SO cold, if their storie
could be told,
Would seem cast in gentle mould, would seen
full of love and spring"
Not far from Miss Grace's home dwell
the one for whom Gf it only bloomed il
time) the lily was intended.
II want it, you see" Miss Grace said tt
her friend, Miss Jane Greggs, a spinster
too, of the old New England type; :"
want it for Easter Day, for though ain
no Episcopalian, that day seems to mi
every Christians day, for don't the Lord
promise, Il am the Resurrection and thu
Life belong to all Christians Ant
then Miss Grace was still for little while