“I’m afraid not. She needs more constant care, and more nourishing food
and other things. I wish I could help her more, but I can only give my
services, and I see so many such cases.”
“But she would take things from you, and not be hurt?”
“I should _make_ her if I had a full purse to go to.”
“Well, then, here are forty dollars for her; and you are to get her
what she needs, and never let her know where it came from--will you?”
“Yes, I will,” he answered earnestly. And then, after a moment, he
said,--“Syl Graham, you are your mother’s daughter. I can say no better
thing of you,--she was a good woman.”
Syl had a hundred dollars left; but that wouldn’t compass the
pomegranate silk, and Syl had concluded now she did not want it. She
had had a glimpse of something better; and that hundred dollars would
make many a sad heart glad before spring.
On New Year’s Day, Papa Graham was off all day making calls; and the
gas was already lighted when he went into his own house, and into his
own drawing-room. He saw a girl there with bands of bright chestnut
hair about her graceful young head; with shining eyes, and lips as
bright as the vivid crimson roses in her braided hair, and in the
bosom of her black silk gown. He looked at her with a fond pride and a
fonder love; and then he bent to kiss her,--for the room was empty of
guests just then. As he lifted his head and met Aunt Rachel’s eyes, it
happened that he said about the same words Dr. Meade had used before,--
“She is her mother’s daughter; I can say of her no better thing.”