Reynolds, Miss
Elvira Reynolds, George, Susy, Anna, John, Hazel, Ella,
and Rufus Reynolds, her former charges. When all this was done,
she lighted a little blaze on the hearth, took the red curtains
from their hands, let them fall gracefully to the floor,
and sat down in her rocking-chair, reconciled to her existence
for absolutely the first time in her forty years.
I hope Mrs. Butterfield was happy enough in Paradise to appreciate
and feel Lyddy's joy. I can even believe she was glad to have died,
since her dying could bring such content to any wretched living human soul.
As Lydia sat in the firelight, the left side of her poor face
in shadow, you saw that she was distinctly harmonious. Her figure,
clad in plain black-and-white calico dress, was a graceful, womanly one.
She had beautifully sloping shoulders and a sweet wrist. Her hair was
soft and plentiful, and her hands were fine, strong, and sensitive.
This possibility of rare beauty made her scars and burns more pitiful,
for if a cheap chrome has smirch across its face, we think it a matter
of no moment, but we deplore the smallest scratch or blur on any
work of real art.
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