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Mann, Mary E., -1929

"Mrs. Day's Daughters"


The tired eyes wandered from that heart-breaking record of promise never
to be fulfilled to the whatnot, holding Franky's toys. Was that dust on
the lid of the paint-box?
She crossed the room, mounted a chair, took down the precious box, dusted
it tenderly with her handkerchief, looked within. Such broken odds and
ends of his gamboge, his yellow ochre, his Indian ink of which he had
prattled to his father, questioning whether carmine or vermilion should be
used for the roofs of his absurd houses; if Prussian blue or ultramarine
should be for his seas and skies. She saw again the huge man and the
little child bending over their pictures on Sunday evenings of long ago,
heard the very tones of their voices. Her tears dropped upon the shabby
old box, upon the little earthen palette on which the colours Franky had
rubbed still remained. All the bitterness had died out of her heart. Only
sadness was left, and a sense of irreparable loss.


CHAPTER XXVIII
At Laburnum Villa

Deleah as she walked homeward that afternoon (for she had overstayed her
allotted time in Bridge Street, and the carriage which was to have picked
her up at a certain point had gone on without her) determined that she
must leave Cashelthorpe.


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