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For Susette, who was only three years old and understood nothing of all this, took half the purple asters from Amy's grave, and turning back confidingly she put the rest in Ethel's hand and then saw a sparrow and chased it, and laughed merrily as it flew away. At night when Joe came home, although he did not speak of the flowers, she knew that he too had been at the grave.
"You'll drive us out of patience," said Flora, tying the handkerchief round Ethel's throat, and pulling out the fingers of her gloves, which, of course, were inside out; "are you ready?" "Oh, my frock! my frock! There 'tis three stitches go on, and I'll come," said Ethel, seizing a needle, and sewing vehemently at a little pink frock.
"Oh, the name Ethel is common enough." "Well, and didn't you find out any thing about her people?" "Whose Ethel's?" "Your child-angel's people." "No. What do I care about her people? They might be Jews or Patagonians for all I care." "Still I should think your interest in her would make you ask." "Oh no; my interest refers to herself, not to her relatives.
Ethel stirred slightly and threw a meaning glance at her aunt. The woman met the look unflinchingly. "Them ain't no boys!" she whispered tartly. Nearer and nearer swelled the chorus until the leaders reached the open doors. Miss Wetherby gave one look at the white-robed singers, then she reached over and clutched Ethel's fingers.
"Why argue about it," said Chaffery gaily, pointing a lean finger at Ethel's gesture, "when she has 'em in her pocket? She may just as well show me now. I thought so. Don't be alarmed at my handling them. Fresh copies can always be got at the nominal price of two-and-seven. Thank you ... Lewisham, George Edgar. One-and-twenty. And ... You one-and-twenty!
The rendering of full justice conveyed in his tone so opened Ethel's heart that she went on eagerly: "The history of it is this. Last time we walked here, that day, I said, and I meant it, that I would never put it out of my head; I would go on doing and striving, and trying, till this place was properly cared for, and has a church and a clergyman.
And you said you'd come to Sand Court as soon as you could!" He looked in the veranda hammock, and in the library, and any place where he thought Midget might be, absorbed in a book; he inquired of the servants; and at last he went back to his mother. "I can't find Mopsy," he said. "Then she must be over at Cousin Ethel's. She does love to go over there."
The misery of such jokes to a sensitive child, conscious of not comprehending their scope, is incalculable, and Blanche having been a baby-coquette, was the more susceptible. She hid her face again from the very sound of her own confession, and resisted Ethel's attempts to draw her out of the musty cupboard, declaring that she could never see either of them again.
It was a kind plan, and gratified Jenny very much when it was proposed and proved to her that no duty would be neglected if she went about with the Homers and left her charge to the excellent lady who enjoyed chiffons as much as Ethel did, and was glad to receive pretty gifts in return for her services. But alas for Ethel's good resolutions and Jenny's well-earned holiday!
Nicky had looked at the blonde, and his eyebrows had gone up ever so slightly. It spoiled Ethel's evening. More than that, as she told her mother of it later, weeping, she declared it had spoiled her life. Eva talked it over with her husband in that intimate, kimonoed hour that precedes bedtime. She gesticulated heatedly with her hair brush. "It's disgusting, that's what it is.
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