The Little Missis. Charlotte Skinner
get it from. I know I feel disappointed, but ought I not to ask: Is Ralph disappointed in me? and is Jesus disappointed in me?"
"What a mean hound I've been!" thought the young shopman, as he caught sight afterwards of her swollen eyes. "It would have served me right if she had boxed my ears. She'll have enough to put up with without me adding to it." And that same night he walked two miles to beg a bunch of roses for her, saying as he gave them to her: "Please forgive me for having been rude to you."
When a king had chosen the design for the gold work of his signet and selected the stone, carefully studying its hue and markings, then came the making of the signet: the gold was put in the fire, and the gem under the lapidary's hammer.
CHAPTER III
A GARDEN LEVÉE
In a little over a year great alterations had been made in Ralph Waring's establishment. The shop next door had been duly taken, the partition wall broken down, and the grocery business started. The only part of Ralph's plan which had not come about was the throwing in of the back parlour into the business portion. "No," said Phebe firmly, "in this department I mean to come first. I am not going to vote for everything being sacrificed to the business; to have a dining-room upstairs means a great deal of extra work. I must also have the parlour of the other shop to convert into a decent kitchen. How can we expect Janie to be bright and happy with nothing better than a scullery to sit in? I mean my kitchen to be as bright and cheery as any room in the house."
"I wonder who's master here!" said Ralph, with a snap.
"We are partners—at least, that is what you have said, and you rule in one department and I in the other. I have no objection to you having one of the front rooms upstairs for a show-room." Ralph had never thought of that, and as it sounded rather "big," it pleased him, and so the dispute ended.
But if changes had been effected in the front premises, a greater change had come about in the back garden, which at first had only looked like a walled-in yard. Where the dandelions had grown was a trim little lawn, with a flower-stand in the centre nearly covered with pink ivy geraniums; there was no space for any elaboration of design, so a narrow bed of flowers round the lawn touched the surrounding walls, which were already nearly covered with shoots of ivy, climbing roses, and that industrious plant, Virginia creeper. In one corner a little arbour had been erected, and, till the climbing plants had completed the covering, a gay red-striped awning had been fixed up, adding still more colour to the scene.
Here one sunny August day Neighbour Bessie found her friend, Mrs. Waring, nursing her baby.
"Well, you do make a pretty picture! Talk of gold pictures in silver frames, you are a picture of love in a frame of flowers."
"Now, no more flattery, neighbour, for a week, or I'll send you to Coventry."
Bessie at once sat down on the grass at Phebe's feet. She was never so happy as when resting on "Nature's bottom shelf." Her mother said this was a sign of laziness; Bessie said it was a sign of economy, because she did not wear out the chair-cushions, and also the sign of a cautious nature, because there was no fear of falling.
"You haven't kissed the baby."
"I don't much care if I do or not, so long as I can kiss you." After the process was over, she added, "If it had been a boy, I just wouldn't have kissed it, so I tell you." Knowing this was a very saucy little speech to make, she did not give Phebe a chance to reply, but hurried on, "It's fairly wonderful the change you have made in this place, and fancy you doing it all yourself! I used to call it 'Dandelion Farm.'"
"What do you call it now?"
"I haven't thought; let me see," leaning her head on her hands and puckering up her brow as though to press the thought in, "it's just like a patch of sunlight; yes, that would do, something out of the usual—Sunshine Patch."
"Yes, that will do," said Phebe, laughing, "but it reminds me how much I disliked the place when first I had a peep of it; these walls fairly made me shudder, and now I wouldn't have them one brick lower, because they give privacy; and see how refreshing they will be to look at when covered with greenery; and look at that lovely laburnum of our neighbour's drooping over the wall; and in the spring that high lilac-tree was a perfect picture. This little patch, as you call it, Bessie, dear, has taught me a lesson I hope I shall remember all my life."
"Whatever is that, teacher?" Bessie asked, looking up with mock wonder.
"But I am serious, Bessie; it is that most of our dark patches we could turn into sunshine patches if only we had the will."
"Do you know," said Bessie, with a real sigh, "my mother is my dark patch, and she walls me round like anything. I wonder if I could plant ivy slips round her!"
"You are a naughty girl," said Phebe, trying hard not to laugh, "I think she has more need to plant them round you."
"Phebe, where are you?" Ralph called out.
"Oh," said Bessie, suddenly springing up, "I'll go at once and consult the gardening book," but Phebe knew this was only a pretence to avoid having to talk to Ralph.
"It is fine to be you," said her husband, "to be able to sit in this retreat doing nothing this broiling hot day. How cool you look! but there, everything goes peacefully with you, while everything goes cross with me."
"Can I put anything right for you?"
"Of course you can't. I've been thinking," sitting down by her side, "what a stupid I am to put myself to so much trouble for people. You know I went last night to Hawtree Hall; I've been going there now for three years, and I haven't one customer in the place."
"But, Ralph, dear, you have a higher aim surely than to get customers."
"Of course I have; dear me, how you do misunderstand me! But surely decent, common gratitude would lead some of the people to deal with me, if they had any. They don't pay for my services!"
"Of course not."
"And why, pray, 'of course not'? The more I get, the more good I can do. Do you think I want money for any special, selfish gratification? God has called me to make money as well as to make speeches, and I can serve Him equally well in both ways."
"Certainly, but I think we all have to watch lest we cloak our ambitions with the appearance of doing God's service, and so deceive ourselves."
"A very nice way of calling me a hypocrite."
"Oh, Ralph, Ralph, it is nothing of the sort! I have often had to watch against that sort of thing."
"Well, don't measure my corn with your bushel, that's all. We'll change the subject. I see you opened that letter of Deason's, asking for that money. I am not going to pay him yet. I want that money for buying a 'new line' with. I am going to try another experiment this winter."
"But, Ralph, that man needs his money, he is poor."
"You can leave all those matters to me. You talk like a—but there, what do women know about business?" And he got up and walked towards the house, but before entering turned round and said, "I shall not be home till late; when it gets cooler perhaps you will be able to make me out a few bills."
She felt inclined to answer, "I don't know enough about business to do that," but wisely kept silence. She had been taking lessons of late in the right use of the lips, and was getting them pretty well under control.
When the cool of the evening came she was again sitting in Sunshine Patch, from whence she got just a little peep of the sunset sky. The baby was asleep; Janie was reading; Phebe had already spent two hours in bill-making and thought she might now conscientiously take