Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/47

Rh "We put on our black frocks for our own mamma's memory—are we to put on our white ones to forget her for our new mamma? I won't wear them."

It now required all Eda's soothing and reasoning to induce them to put on what they had just been admiring. When they were drest, Eda saw from the flushed cheek and little trembling hand of her beloved charges that they were over excited. Naturally delicate and timid, they were sensitive beyond their years; and, anxious both for their good looks and good behaviour, their nurse sent them into the garden to gather a nosegay to give Mrs. Dalton on her arrival.

It was a lovely morning in autumn, one of those delicious days which unite the warmth of spring with the deeper and more melancholy tone of the departing year. The early flowers had long since perished. The snow-drop, crocus and epatica had led the way for the lavish profusion of the violet, the laburnum, the lilac, and the numberless roses that take so many shapes and all