: Myth and Romance: Being a Book of Verses by Cawein Madison Julius - Poetry

@FreeBooksTue 06 Jun, 2023

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CHAPTER

The Milkman's Little Account

IT was a dull little sitting-room on the third floor of a dingy lodging-house, in an unfashionable London suburb. The pale rays of November sunshine peeping through the window panes enhanced the shabbiness of the apartment with its cheap, much-worn furniture, and ugly wall-paper, its pretentious mirror in a tarnished gilded frame above the mantel-piece, and the ill-chosen ornaments which were doubtless supposed to add attractiveness to the whole.

The sole occupant of the room, at present, was a little girl of about eleven years of age. Her name was Angelica Willis, but she was always called Angel. She was a slight, pale child, with a gentle, sweet-tempered face, which, if not exactly pretty, was very pleasing by reason of a pair of honest, grey eyes--true reflectors of every thought which crossed their owner's mind. Now, the grey eyes were misty and sad in expression, for Angel was thinking of her mother, who had died two years before, and recalling all that she had said the last time they had talked together. In imagination she could hear the dear, faltering voice murmuring feebly--

"You'll be loving and patient with Gerald, won't you, little daughter? You'll remember he's younger than you are, and be a good elder sister to him, won't you, dear?"

Gerald was Angel's brother, eighteen months her junior, and she had readily given her mother the desired promise. It was not difficult to be good to Gerald, for she loved him dearly; she had been in the habit of studying his wishes all her life; and she was capable of loving without selfishness, asking little in return. "Love feels no burden; thinks nothing a trouble," was true in her case.

Gerald had been the mother's favourite of the two children; but that knowledge had not caused Angel one jealous pang. She was too fond of her brother herself to begrudge him the first share of any one's affection; and now when the dear, indulgent mother was no longer there to wait upon him, she faithfully tried to fill her place, and was his willing slave, darning his socks, mending his clothes, helping him with his lessons evenings--in fact, being generally employed either by or for him in one way or another. Angel regarded herself in the light of a failure. Her father, an artist, 'had named her Angelica, after Angelica Kauffmann, and had fondly hoped that she would inherit his talent for painting, and follow in the footsteps of her namesake; he had anticipated that she would be endowed with what he called "the artistic temperament;" but Angel had proved somewhat of a disappointment. She had never evinced the least taste for drawing, whereas she had early taken to a needle and thimble, and had learnt to sew, and assist her mother with her household duties at an age when most children show distinct dislike to such domestic employments; but to "help mother" had been Angel's greatest pleasure.

Mrs. Willis had had rather a hard married life. She had married a man of undoubted abilities, but who had unhappily never succeeded in earning a sufficient income to adequately support his wife and children. She had believed in him, however, and had never complained because she had been obliged to work harder than any servant; only, once, Angel remembered, when something had been said about her lacking "the artistic temperament," her mother's face had brightened into a smile, and she had said, "Angel is my right hand. I do not know what I should do without my little daughter. Perhaps it is as well she has not 'the artistic temperament' after all!"

Later, when a woman grown, Angel recalled those words, and understood their meaning. But now, as she sat by the fireside, waiting for her brother's return from school, her thoughts turned from her dead mother to her father in his studio at the top of the house, where he was painting the great picture which he believed was to bring him fame and make his fortune, and wished she was not such a disappointment to him. It was indeed sad that she, an artist's daughter, should be denied "the artistic temperament!"

"It is not that I don't admire beautiful things," the little girl thought, "because I do. I love flowers, and I should like to live in a pretty house in the country, and--"

Her reflections were interrupted by a sharp knock at the door, which subsequently opened to admit the landlady of the house, Mrs. Steer-- a portly, middle-aged woman, clad in a purple merino gown, the front width of which was plentifully besprinkled with grease spots.

"I'm come to tell you the milkman wants his little account settled," she said abruptly, but not unkindly, casting a solicitous glance at the child. "It ain't no good my speaking to your pa, as you well know, Miss Angel; for though he listens most politely, all I say goes in one of his ears and out the other."

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