Daisy
Susan Warner
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, Sept. 13, 2013)
Excerpt: ...and hats hanging on them. Miss Lansing moved and changed several of these, till she had cleared a space for me. "There " she said, "now you'll do, won't you? I don't believe you can get a scrap of a corner in the wardrobe; Macy and Bentley and St. Clair take it up so. I haven't but one dress hanging there, but you've got a whole drawer in the bureau." I was not very awkward and clumsy in my belongings, but an elephant could scarcely have been more bewildered if he had been requested to lay his proboscis up in a glove box. "I cannot put a dress in the drawer," I remarked. "Oh, you can hang one up, here, under your cap; and that is all any of us do. Our things, all except our everyday things, go down stairs in our trunks. Have you many trunks?" I told her no, only one. I did not know why it was a little disagreeable to me to say that. The feeling came and passed. I hung up my coat and cap, and brushed my hair; my new companion looking on. Without any remark, however, she presently rushed off, and I was left alone. I began to appreciate that. I sat down on the side of my little bed, to my fancy the very chairs were appropriated, and looked at my new place in the world. Five of us in that room! I had always had the comfort of great space and ample conveniences about me; was it a luxury I had enjoyed? It had seemed nothing more than a necessity. And now, must I dress and undress myself before so many spectators? could I not lock up anything that belonged to me? were all my nice and particular habits to be crushed into one drawer and smothered on one or two clothes pins? Must everything I did be seen? And above all, where could I pray? I looked round in a sort of fright. There was but one closet in the room, and that was a washing closet, and held besides a great quantity of other people's belongings. I could not, even for a moment, shut it against them. In a kind of terror, I looked to make sure that I was alone, and fell on my knees. It seemed to me...