Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/53



Jane was almost always the first of the Garden girls to come down in the morning. She was as full of moods, varying in light and shade, as the surface of a pool overhung with branches. Throughout some of her days she chattered and sang in the wildest of high spirits from dawn till dark. Again she fell into deep wells of silence where nothing could reach her; remote and inaccessible she wrapped herself in her own thoughts, refusing to amuse or to be amused on these days. Whatever her mood, after the spring had come she was faithful to her flower-bed in the garden. Mary worked in hers more steadily, Florimel with greater gusto—when she worked—but Jane gave her bed the place of a beloved volume of poetry, in which she read daily. When the birds and the eastern sky were tuning up together, in sound and colour, Jane sped lightly down the stairs and outdoors to look for overnight developments in her flowers and to sing above them.