THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET 
87 
of forty feet, and in one season has been known to grow 
fifteen feet. Although its flowers are not brilliant, 
they are very sweet-scented, and their dark-brown clus¬ 
tering blossoms form a pretty contrast to the purple and 
white of the Wistaria, and when to these you add the 
bright colors of the Honeysuckles and Roses, with the 
heavy dark-green foliage as back-ground, you have a 
floral display of unusual attractiveness. 
VICTORIA. 
Daisies, Buttercups and Blackberry blossoms in the 
fields and by the waysides. The country was like a 
church trimmed in June for a wedding-day. Pansies, 
Roses and sweet-breathed Syringas in the city gardens. 
Mrs. Stevenson, leaning out of the carriage window, 
gave a nod of regret. 
“ It’s a shame to leave them,” she said; “my flowers 
never looked so well. I wonder if the inside cellar-door 
is fastened ? What in the world is Lavinia May doing— 
why don’t she come ?” 
Lavinia May, the colored maid-servant walked in dig¬ 
nity down the front steps. It was a most respectable 
city residence. One-half of a block of two. Lace 
draperies in the lower windows—crimson hangings in 
the front room up stairs. At this moment the respect¬ 
able appearance of the house was somewhat detracted 
from by Lavinia May’s traveling arrangements. She 
carried a large straw basket and a number of loosely 
put together packages in newspaper wrappings, with 
here and there a bit of female attire hanging out. On 
top of this was balanced a dark-blue pasteboard 
box. Mrs. Stevenson looked her over in great dis¬ 
pleasure. 
“ I thought you had a bag,” she said. “Why didn’t 
you ask for one? I never heard of such a thing as 
your carrying all those bundles.” 
Lavinia May offered no explanation. 
Miss Stevenson snapped the front door and came down 
the steps. She had no bundles, but was burdened with 
an air of great responsibility. 
. “I believe everything is locked,” she said. “The 
kitchen fire’s safe. I took the cover off the stove.” 
Inside the carriage they were rather quiet. People 
going out of town to rest are generally quiet the first 
few days. 
“ Did you bring a string, Lydia ?” asked Mrs. Steven¬ 
son. “We ought to have brought a strong string. I 
knew we’d forgot something.” 
“I’ve got one,” said Lavinia May. “ It’s in my blue 
box; it’s the same one we use at home.” 
Miss Lydia Stevenson looked at the basket and smiled. 
She said something about its being perfectly ridiculous. 
The smile became a suppressed laugh, which bubbled 
over at intervals, until distracted by the necessity of 
buying tickets and checking the trunk. 
“I am sure I don’t see why you laugh, Lydia,” said 
her mother. “I had a thousand times rather take her 
than a band-box with my best bonnet. I hope it won’t 
make her sick.” 
“ She hasn’t stirred once,” announced Lavinia May, 
in her low, chanting tone—a tone which never under 
the most favorable circumstances—such as a circus, or 
a fire, or burglars breaking through the kitchen win¬ 
dows—became less slow and less chanting. “ She looks 
as. if she was chloroformed.” 
Mrs. Stevenson interrupted, throwing a shawl care¬ 
lessly over the basket cover: “ Don’t say another word 
about her; here’s some one we know.” 
“ O, she won’t make any noise,” said Lavinia May, 
with mournful cheerfulness; “ I guess she’s a-going to 
die—she looks so.” 
The train sped on through the Daisy and Buttercup 
country. 
The quietest of New England villages. Long shady 
streets, and the clock on the village church keeping a 
ceaseless watch over the town. In the quietest, sha¬ 
diest street, close under the shadow of the church, 
stood the old Stevenson Homestead—a rambling house 
—grandmother’s house—rooms old-fashioned every¬ 
where. Rooms full of hymns ancient and modern, as 
Lydia Stevenson expressed it. China that had come 
from London a century ago on the upper shelves of the 
china-closet, looking down on a china that had come in 
the last steamer. 
Up-stairs a rosewood spinnet, and the portrait of a 
young girl who had once fingered the yellow keys. 
Down-stairs a modern upright, with some new music 
carelessly piled on the case. Books with dates a hun¬ 
dred years ago; books that were printed yesterday; 
books that died at their birth; books that will outlive 
time—“ forever and forever.” 
Behind the house was a garden; the garden ran down 
to the orchard; the orchard leaped over the brook and 
struggled half-way up the hill into a fragrant pine 
forest, and everywhere the clock on the village church 
looked steadily down. 
The trunk and the basket were deposited in the back 
porch; Lavinia May’s bundles on the kitchen table, the 
front door-key being in possession of Mr. Paul Meyers, 
principal of the young ladies’ seminary. Judge Steven¬ 
son and his family were in Europe, and during their 
absence Paul Meyers slept in one of the upper rooms, 
and carried the key of the front door in his vest pocket. 
There was also a cat, who had no key, but possessed 
ways of getting in and out known only to herself. 
Several times daily she passed through the halls on a 
round of inspection. Paul Myers often met her as he 
went up to bed; otherwise the house was tenantless. 
In town it had become a fashion for people who 
owned unoccupied country houses and seaside cottages, 
to lend them to friends for a few days. This was why 
the trunk contained more small groceries than wearing 
apparel. Sugar, tea, sea-moss farina, coffee, crackers, 
canned goods, rice, oatmeal, boneless fish, lemons, and 
food for Victoria, whom Lavinia May, having lifted 
from the basket, tied with a strong string to a tree in 
the door-yard. 
. . . • • • S 
Who was Victoria? Left to herself and her natural 
disposition, she would have been a hen—a simple, un¬ 
interesting farmyard hen—but she had not been left to 
