So she said to herself. Oh, Grizel!
But first she opened two drawers. They were in a great press and full
of beautiful linen woven in Thrums, that had come to Dr. McQueen as a
"bad debt." "Your marriage portion, young lady," he had said to
Grizel, then but a slip of a girl, whereupon, without waiting to
lengthen her frock, she rushed rapturously at her work-basket. "Not at
all, miss," he cried ferociously; "you are here to look after this
house, not to be preparing for another, and until you are respectably
bespoken by some rash crittur of a man, into the drawers with your
linen and down with those murderous shears." And she had obeyed; no
scissors, the most relentless things in nature when in Grizel's hand,
had ever cleaved their way through that snowy expanse; never a stitch
had she put into her linen except with her eyes, which became horribly
like needles as she looked at it.
And now at last she could begin! Oh, but she was anxious to begin; it
is almost a fact that, as she looked at those drawers, she grudged the
time that must be given to-day to Tommy and his ring.
Do you see her now, ready to start? She was wearing her brown jacket
with the fur collar, over which she used to look so searchingly at
Tommy.
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