The Sow's Ear

Excerpt from The Sow's Ear

A Real English fire, albeit it was an Italian hearth - a shaded lamp throwing quaint shadows round the big room, so foreign in the sparseness of its furnishing - and two figures at the fireside - a little child in a pale blue night-wrapper, with bare pink feet, and a woman, whose fragile, youthful beauty was the more accentuated by her widow's weeds: such was the picture.

A moment ago a tiny, dark-haired girl had been borne off in the nurse's arms, having brought a parrot-like formula of a prayer to an abrupt conclusion with a very genuine petition for chocolates. The concrete had this advantage over the abstract - chocolates the small Giselda understood, but to the best of her knowledge she had never tasted a "blessing" in her life, though she had prayed for one systematically night and morning for the best part of six years.

But the little one left behind, rising from her brief devotions, stood dreamily gazing into the glowing coals, and spoke no word at all.

Her companion watched her without stirring, perhaps deeming that a child's thoughts melt as snow under the hot breath of questioning; but there was love unspeakable, and a certain yearning wistfulness, in the eyes that rested upon the glory of auburn curls framing the earnest baby face. Suddenly the little creature turned, and met the look with something of the same expression, in a pair of eyes as blue as corn-flowers.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.