Fanciful Ways

 

 'Romantic,' Christopher said scornfully.  Annaple's fanciful ways were a great nuisance to her family.  She bought a harp and sat on the window sill twanging it, singing in a small flat voice and breaking her fingernails on the gilded strings.  She sighed over pear blossom in the spring, ate strawberries even though they brought her our in a rash, cooed over babies, fussed about wearing gloves to church, and wasted time embroidering flowers on a useless strip of ivory silk which had taken her three years already.  She plaited her hair like a goose-girl's, stuck wilting daisies in it, and talked about the simple pleasures of country life although she had never so much as miLked a cow: 'Making butter in the dairy, picking lavender, herding the geese across the fields, feeding lambs, long evenings by the fire with your patchwork---'"

The Thirteen Days of Christmas

Jenny Overton