The desk at which he was writing was once his
father's, and he well remembered the methodical manner in which every
drawer was carefully kept; over it hung a full-length portrait of his
mother, and it seemed, as he gazed at it, that it was only yesterday that
she had taken his little hand in her own, and walked with him down the long
avenue of magnolias that were waving their flower-spangled branches in the
morning breeze, and loading it with fragrance. Near him was the table on
which her work-basket used to stand. He remembered how important he felt
when permitted to hold the skeins of silk for her to wind, and how he would
watch her stitch, stitch, hour after hour, at the screen that now stood
beside the fire-place; the colours were faded, but the recollection of the
pleasant smiles she would cast upon him from time to time, as she looked up
from her work, was as fresh in his memory as if it were but yesterday. Mr.
Garie was assorting and arranging the papers that the desk contained, when
he heard the rattle of wheels along the avenue, and looking out of the
window, he saw a carriage approaching.
The coachman was guiding his horses with one hand, and with the other he
was endeavouring to keep a large, old-fashioned trunk from falling from the
top.
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