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Laura E. Richards

Narcissa, or the Road to Rome; In Verona

NARCISSA.

THE ROAD TO ROME

Part I.

DREAMING

Narcissa was sitting in the doorway, feeding the young turkeys. It was the back door of the old gray house, – no one would have thought of sitting in the front doorway, – and there were crooked flagstones leading up to it, cracked and seamed, with grass growing in the cracks. Close by the door-post, against which the girl was leaning, stood a great bush of tansy, with waving feathery leaves and yellow blossoms, like small gold buttons. Narcissa was very fond of this tansy-bush, and liked to pluck a leaf and crush it in her hands, to bring out the keen, wholesome smell. She had one in her hand now, and was wondering if ever any one had a dress of green velvet, tansy-color, with gold buttons. The minister's wife once had a bow of green velvet on her black straw bonnet, and Narcissa had loved to look at it, and to wish it were somewhere else, with things that belonged to it. She often thought of splendid clothes, though she had never seen anything finer than the black silk of the minister's wife, and that always made her think of a newly-blacked stove. When she was younger, she had made a romance about every scrap of silk or satin in the crazy-quilt that Aunt Pinker's daughter, the milliner, had sent her one Christmas. The gown she had had out of that yellow satin – it did her good to think about it even now! – and there was a scrap of pale pink silk which came – was it really nothing but fancy? – from a long, trailing robe, trimmed with filmy lace (the lace in the story-papers was always filmy), in which she had passed many happy, dreamy hours.

It never occurred to Narcissa that she needed no fine clothes to set off her beauty; in truth, she never dreamed that she had any beauty. Color meant so much to her, that she had always accepted the general verdict that she was "pindlin'-lookin'," and joined sincerely in the chorus of praise which always greeted the rosy cheeks and solid-looking yellow hair of Delilah Parshley, who lived at the next house below the old gray one.

Yet it was true that Narcissa had no need of finery; and it was a pretty picture she made, sitting in the doorway, leaning against the door-post. Her hair was nearly black, with no gloss or sparkle, only a soft, dusky cloudiness. It curled in little rings about her broad, low forehead, and round her soft, pale cheeks. Her eyes were dusky, too, but more gray than brown, and the only vivid color was in the scarlet line of her lips. There was nothing unhealthy in her clear pallor, no hint of sallowness, but a soft, white glow. The nostrils of her little straight nose were cut high, which gave them a look of being always slightly dilated; this caused the neighbors to say that Narcissa White was proud, though dear knew what she had to be proud of. As for her dress, it was of blue jean, a good deal faded, but all the better for that; and her white apron, though coarse, was spotless and carefully starched.