Description

‘Short Sixes’; Stories to be Read While the Candle Burns by H. C. Bunner

142 pages 

IT WAS A DIM, QUIET ROOM
in an old-fashioned New York house, with windows opening upon a garden that was
trim and attractive, even in its Winter dress—for the rose-bushes were all bundled up in
straw ulsters. The room was ample, yet it had a cosy air. Its dark hangings suggested
comfort and luxury, with no hint of gloom. A hundred pretty trifles told that it was a young
girl’s room: in the deep alcove nestled her dainty white bed, draped with creamy lace and
ribbons.
“I was so afraid that I’d be late!”
The door opened, and two pretty girls came in, one in hat and furs, the other in a modest house-dress. The
girl in the furs, who had been afraid that she would be late, was fair, with a bright color in her cheeks, and an
eager, intent look in her clear brown eyes. The other girl was dark-eyed and dark-haired, dreamy, with a
soft, warm, dusky color in her face. They were two very pretty girls indeed—or, rather, two girls about to
be very pretty, for neither one was eighteen years old. The dark girl glanced at a little porcelain clock.
“You are in time, dear,” she said, and helped hercompanion to take off her wraps.
Then the two girls crossed the room, and with a caressing and almost a reverent touch, the dark girl
opened the doors of a little carven cabinet that hung upon the wall, above a small table covered with a
delicate white cloth. In its depths, framed in a mat of odorous double violets, stood the photograph of the face of a handsome man of forty—a face crowned with clustering black locks, from beneath which a pair of large, mournful eyes looked out with something like religious fervor in their rapt gaze. It was the face of a foreigner.