She
added a frail fern or two, and did give just the graceful touch here
and there which would speak to the mother's gore heart of the tender
thought some one had taken for her dead darling.
The box was sent away, and Christie went on with her work, but that
little task performed together seemed to have made them friends;
and, while David tied up several grand bouquets at the same table,
they talked as if the strangeness was fast melting away from their
short acquaintance.
Christie's own manners were so simple that simplicity in others
always put her at her ease: kindness soon banished her reserve, and
the desire to show that she was grateful for it helped her to
please. David's bluntness was of such a gentle sort that she soon
got used to it, and found it a pleasant contrast to the polite
insincerity so common. He was as frank and friendly as a boy, yet
had a certain paternal way with him which rather annoyed her at
first, and made her feel as if he thought her a mere girl, while she
was very sure he could not be but a year or two older than herself.
"I'd rather he'd be masterful, and order me about," she thought,
still rather regretting the "blighted being" she had not found.
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