, 1890-01-09
A LONDON STORY.

Milly 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 yet
fortunate enough to boast one small win
dow on the street. Ay, that window was
Milly's glory; the joy and delight of her
existence. TIL street was a dingy Lon
don one; hardly a thoroughfare, and
therefore not noisy, but gay, and even
delectably worldly, in the child's eyes.
For she was moi much more than a child
as yet; 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 bred,
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, a fund of freshness and in
nocence in Milly's soul was wont often
to burst forth like a sweet, pure spring
OF water coming from depths unknown,
ready to gladden. and solace the arid
hearts of her n~eighbors.
She was friendly to those neighbors,
who, some of them, befriended her. But
she had always been much alone. She
was almost like a prisoner, this little
lame and feeble bodied seamstress, or
rather embroideress, who spent her I'M
cared for youth bending over a frame of
needlework, carrying out the ideas and
designs of o~thers-only occasionally, as
n rare luxury, allowed to work her own
will and her own fancies into the threads
Of silk and pieces of linen or satin left
over"
II a boys will be the winds will, what
shall be said of a girl's2 Is 1t light,
~ephemeral, like the sea foam7 Or strong
err, like bindweed in gardens2 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 inc the window
sill and craning her neck painfully she
could 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, 30 lovely, 80
comforting and yet heart stirring that
the child could never be satiated with
looking and wondering at it.
A flower shop it was. What are flow
ers made of and how do they Gomez ask
the Londoners. How are they gathered
and brought together in their infinite
beauty of o n and color, in their brill
fancy and freshness, in their tenderness
and sweetness? Flowers in pots, flowers
in lunches, flowers in sprays, struggling
groups of flowers, and stray single
blooms-al these filled and decked the
window panes OF the shop opposite; all
these gladdened the eager beating heart
Of the little lame embroideress. 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, CHANGING up now
and then to gain from beyond the narrow
street n 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 n
great intention.
For she wanted to copy nature. Nav,
who that has once seen natur can be
readily content with a 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 cu~pboard-her
cupboard where she kept everything.
from a piece of dry bread to an empty
backing bottle and IN old Bible-and
dress herself l~aboriously 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 a 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 a second time. She
studied them, h loved them, she
strained her eyes to see them. Good.
But q few days later they were gone