Life and Death of Harriett Frean

Book Excerpt: ...ut her eyes, squeezing the lids down, frightened. But when she thought of the lane she could see nothing but the green banks, the three tall elms, and the red campion pricking through the white froth of the cow's parsley; her mother stood on the garden walk in her wide, swinging gown; she was holding the red and white flowers up to her face and saying, "Look, how beautiful they are."She saw her all the time while Connie was telling her the secret. She wanted to get up and go to her. Connie knew what it meant when you stiffened suddenly and made yourself tall and cold and silent. The cold silence would frighten her and she would go away. Then, Harriett thought, she could get back to her mother and Longfellow. Every afternoon, through the hours before her father came home, she sat in the cool, green-lighted drawing-room reading Evangeline aloud to her mother. When they came to the beautiful places they looked at each other and smiled. She passed through her fourteenth year sedately, ...