The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Gray Lady, by F. Hopkinson Smith

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Title: The Little Gray Lady
1909

Author: F. Hopkinson Smith

Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23695]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE LITTLE GRAY LADY

By F. Hopkinson Smith

1909

I

Once in a while there come to me out of the long ago the fragments of a
story I have not thought of for years--one that has been hidden in the
dim lumber-room of my brain where I store my by-gone memories.

These fragments thrust themselves out of the past as do the cuffs of
an old-fashioned coat, the flutings of a flounce, or the lacings of a
bodice from out a quickly opened bureau drawer. Only when you follow
the cuff along the sleeve to the broad shoulder; smooth out the crushed
frill that swayed about her form, and trace the silken thread to the
waist it tightened, can you determine the fashion of the day in which
they were worn.

And with the rummaging of this lumber-room come the odors: dry smells
from musty old trunks packed with bundles of faded letters and worthless
deeds tied with red tape; musty smells from dust-covered chests, iron
bound, holding mouldy books, their backs loose; pungent smells
from cracked wardrobes stuffed with moth-eaten hunting-coats,
riding-trousers, and high boots with rusty spurs--cross-country riders
these--roisterers and gamesters--a sorry lot, no doubt.

Or perhaps it is an old bow-legged high-boy--its club-feet slippered on
easy rollers--the kind with deep drawers kept awake by rattling brass
handles, its outside veneer so highly polished that you are quite sure
it must have been brought up in some distinguished family. The scent of
old lavender and spiced rose leaves, and a stick or two of white orris
root, haunt this relic: my lady's laces must be kept fresh, and so must
my lady's long white mitts--they reach from her dainty knuckles quite
to her elbow. And so must her cobwebbed silk stockings and the filmy
kerchief she folds across her bosom:

It is this kind of a drawer that I am opening now--one belongi