The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-01-31
A LONDON STORY.

Mllly was the poor little souls name;
no one had ever called her anything else
only Milly.
She made her scanty living BY en-
broidcry, residing in a forlorn looking,
dark and narrow room that was vet
fortunate enough to boast one small win
dow on the street. Ay, that window was
Millys glory; the joy and delight of her
existence The street was dingy Lon.
don one; hardly thoroughfare, and
therefore not noisy, but gay, and even
delectably worldly, in the child's eyes.
For she was not much more than child
as vet: though worn in face and serious
looking, she was young in years, scarce
II surely at most, while in character she
was very childish still London pred.
she was shrewd and quick in many
things, keenly alive to the necessity Of
daily work, thoroughly expectant of the
money loving ways of her employers
and astute with regard to life generally:
nevertheless, fund of freshness and in
nocence in Milly's soul was wont often
to burst forth like sweet, pure spring
of water coming from depths unknown,
hearts of her neighbors
She was friendly to those neighbors,
who, some of them, befriended her. But
she had always been much alone. She
was almost like prisoner, this little
lame and feeble bodied seamstress, or
rather embroideress, who spent her un-
cared for youth bending over frame of
Designs of Others-only occasionally, as
rare luxury, allowed to work her own
will and her own fancies into the threads
of silk and pieces of linen or satin cleft
over"
If a boys will be the winds will, what
shall be said of a girls? Is it light,
ephemeral, like the sea foam? Or strong
er, like bindweed in gardens? Or firm,
and brave, and shining, like the marble
that makes the coping stone of palaces?
know not.
Milly cared little for the vehicles that
sometimes went rumbling down her
street, nor for the sad looking, poorly
dressed pedestrians who were the only
frequenters of that neighborhood, nor for
the loud voiced vendors of cheap goods
in barrOws. 1t was the corner of gray
sky-occasionally a pallid blue-which
she liked, and which (by squeezing well
in betwixt a heavy table and the window
sill and craning her neck painfully she
90 see and greatly enjoy, in contrast
to the dingy atmosphere of her lodging
But what she loved best of all to gaze
on from her window was the shop ppo-
site-a shop so glorious, so lovely, so
comforting and yet heart stirring that
the child could never be satiated with
looking and wondering at it.
flower shop it was. What are flow
ers made of and how do they come? ask
the Londoners. How are they gathered
and brought together in their infinite
beauty of tone and color, in their brill
fancy and freshness, in their tenderness
and sweetness? Flowers in pots, flowers
in punches, flowers in sprays, struggling
groups of flowers, and stray single
blooms-all these filled and decked the
window panes of the shop opposite; all
these gladdened the eager beating heart
of the little lame enbroideress. 1t mat
tered not, when her eyes were delighted
with this dream of fairy color, that she
was lame; nor did she remember her
many sorrows when, with hot trem-
bling hands, she threaded her needle and
piled her loveliest silks, glancing up now
and then to gain from beyond the narrow
street a new draught from her source of
inspiration. Fast flew her fingers, fast
grew the flowers beneath her touch:
like, yet not like, the originals; pretty,
perchance. yet disappointingly different
to expectation, thought the little artist,
who realized without knowledge of the
why or wherefore) this failure of a
great intention
For she wanted to copy nature. Nay,
who that has once seen nature can be
readily content with counterfeit?
Every now and then, at sparse inter-
walls of time when she was thoroughly
disheartened and disguised with her own
handiwork, Milly would fetch her old
hat and cape out of the cupboard-her
cupboard where she kept everything,
from piece of dry bread to an empty
backing bottle and an old Bible-and
dress herself laboriously and crawl over
to the opposite side of the street and
stand there, her face pressed against the
panes of the flower shop window till she
could stand upright no more. If the
weather was cold her slender form shiv-
cred under the threadbare black cape,
her face grew more pinched and blue
than before. but she held her place brave
ly, studying the form, the make" of the
flowers till she knew them so well that
she could shut her eyes and reproduce
them on that wonderful canvas which
we all possess as free gift to paint our
beautiful visions upon-the clear white
page of our own minds.
There was one thing that troubled her.
the flowers died so quickly. Milly had
neither time nor strength to pay frequent
visits to the flower store, and conse-
quently never might she hope to see her
favorites quite close second time. She
studied them, she loved them, she
Seied her eyes to see them. Good.
but few days later they were gone
from their accustomed places, and
others, new comers-new, graceful, fairy
things-were displayed where the old
friends had slowly dropped or had been
hastily removed. That was the way OF
the world, doubtless, but there are some
people who never get used to the ways
OF the world. Milly was haply one OF
these.
She had one friend-though should
rather say one acquaintance, for he was
scarcely more-and that was the little
crossing sweeper, the poor boy Jim.
Their misfortunes were bond between
them, perhaps; they were both crippled,