Therefore, when her carriage, with
its prancing horses and perfect appointments, drew up at the
Mainwarings' door, the old-fashioned little place felt quite a flutter
through its heart.
Poppy Jenkins, the laundress's pretty daughter, came out into the
street, and stared with all her eyes. The doctor's wife, who lived at
the opposite side of the street, gazed furtively and enviously from
behind her muslin blinds. The baker and the butcher neglected their
usual morning orders; and Hannah, the Mainwarings' servant, felt
herself, as she expressed it, all of a tremble from top to toe.
"Let me brush your hair, Miss Primrose," she said, when she had at
last succeeded in inducing her young lady to dry her tears; "and are
your hands nice and clean, Miss Primrose? and your collar, is it neat?
It's very condescending of Mrs. Ellsworthy to call."
"I wonder what she has come about," said Primrose; "she never knew my
mother."
Primrose felt at that moment the great lady's visit to be an
intrusion.
"I'll just run into the garden and stop Miss Jasmine and Miss Daisy
rushing into the drawing-room all in a mess," said Hannah. "Oh! sakes
alive! why, the young ladies will be seen anyhow from the French
window.
Pages:
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50