Part 18 (2/2)
”There's no need of any little triumphs or mortifications. n.o.body crows, and n.o.body cries. _I_'m glad. Diana's a dear, and Hazel's a duck, besides being my cousins; why shouldn't I? Only there _is_ a large hole for the cats, and a little hole for the kittens; and I'd as lief, myself, go in with the cats.”
”The Marchbankses are staying there, and Professor Gregory. I don't know about cats,” said Desire, demurely.
”It's a reason-why party, for all that,” said Agatha, carelessly, recovering her good humor.
”Well, when any nice people ask me, I hope there _will_ be a 'reason why.' It's the persons of consequence that make the 'reason why.'”
And Desire had the last word.
Hazel Ripwinkley was thinking neither of large holes nor little ones,--cats nor kittens; she was saying to Luclarion, sitting in her shady down-stairs room behind the kitchen, that looked out into the green yard corner, ”how nicely things came out, after all!”
”They seemed so hobblety at first, when I went up there and saw all those beautiful books, and pictures, and people living amongst them every day, and the poor Kincaids not getting the least bit of a stretch out of their corner, ever. I'll tell you what I thought, Luclarion;” and here she almost whispered, ”I truly did. I thought G.o.d was making a mistake.”
Luclarion put out her lips into a round, deprecating pucker, at that, and drew in her breath,--
”Oo--s.h.!.+”
”Well, I mean it seemed as if there was a mistake somewhere; and that I'd no business, at any rate, with what they wanted so. I couldn't get over it until I asked for those pictures; and mother said it was such a bold thing to do!”
”It was bold,” said Luclarion; ”but it wasn't forrud. It was gi'n you, and it hit right. That was looked out for.”
”It's a stumpy world,” said Luclarion Grapp to Mrs. Ripwinkley, afterward; ”but some folks step right over their stumps athout scarcely knowin' when!”
XII.
CRUMBS.
Desire Ledwith was, at this epoch, a perplexity and a worry,--even a positive terror sometimes,--to her mother.
It was not a case of the hen hatching ducks, it was rather as if a hen had got a hawk in her brood.
Desire's demurs and questions,--her dissatisfactions, sittings and contempts,--threatened now and then to swoop down upon the family life and comfort with destroying talons.
”She'll be an awful, strong-minded, radical, progressive, overturning woman,” Laura said, in despair, to her friend Mrs.
Megilp. ”And Greenley Street, and Aspen Street, and that everlasting Miss Craydocke, are making her worse. And what can I do? Because there's Uncle.”
Right before Desire,--not knowing the cloud of real bewilderment that was upon her young spiritual perceptions, getting their first glimpse of a tangled and conflicting and distorted world,--she drew wondering comparisons between her elder children and this odd, anxious, restless, sharp-spoken girl.
”I don't understand it,” she would say. ”It isn't a bit like a child of mine. I always took things easy, and got the comfort of them somehow; I think the world is a pretty pleasant place to live in, and there's lots of satisfaction to be had; and Agatha and Florence take after me; they are nice, good-natured, contented girls; managing their allowances,--that I wish were more,--tr.i.m.m.i.n.g their own bonnets, and enjoying themselves with their friends, girl-fas.h.i.+on.”
Which was true. Agatha and Florence were neither fretful nor dissatisfied; they were never disrespectful, perhaps because Mrs.
Ledwith demanded less of deferential observance than of a kind of jolly companions.h.i.+p from her daughters; a go-and-come easiness in and out of what they called their home, but which was rather the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g-up and outfitting place,--a sort of Holmes' Hole,--where they put in spring and fall, for a thorough overhaul and rig; and at other times, in intervals or emergencies, between their various and continual social trips and cruises. They were hardly ever all-togetherish, as Desire had said, if they ever were, it was over house cleaning and millinery; when the ordering was complete,--when the wardrobes were finished,--then the world was let in, or they let themselves out, and--”looked.”
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