The rest of the
girls are at school yet. Mother says she is not going to palm off any
frauds in her daughters when they get married; and if we only turn out
half as good as she is, our husbands will be lucky men, if I do say
it; and if all of us don't get any, we can take care of ourselves.
Father has been holding you up as an example of what a girl can do, if
she has to make her own way in the world."
And the sprightly, but sensible, girl would have rattled on
indefinitely, had not Edith fled to her room in an uncontrollable rush
of sorrow over the sad, sad, "It might have been."
One afternoon Annie came into Edith's room, saying, "I am going to
dress your hair. Yes, I will--now don't say a word, I want to. We
expect two or three friends in--one you'll be glad to see. No, I
won't tell you who it is. It's a surprise." And she flew at Edith's
head, pulled out the hairpins, and went to work with a dexterity and
rapidity that did credit to her training. In a little while she had
crowned Edith with nature's most exquisite coronet.
A cloud of care seemed to rest on Mr. Hart's brow as they entered the
dining-room, but he banished it instantly, and with the quaint,
stately gallantry of the old school, pretended to be deeply smitten
with Edith's loveliness.
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