You will not
wish"--she dismissed us abruptly--"to go with me to the shops?"
"No; Miss Winship attracts too much attention."
Alas, it's true! It has become an ordeal for me to venture into a shop.
But what a blessed thing if my beauty should bring success and ease to
this poor, struggling little widow--just by my wearing a dress she has
made! Oh, she'll not be the only one! What if Kitty sometime wins fame by
painting my picture, or Cadge by writing of me in her "Recollections?" Why
shouldn't I inspire great poems and noble deeds and fine songs, like the
famous beauties Miss Coleman told about? Yes, even more than they; there
was not one of them all like me!
Next evening when Aunt brought the samples upstairs, I was reading to the
Judge in the library, and the others were listening as if stocks and bonds
were more fascinating than romances.
"Shall we pray for a second Joshua, arresting the sun, pending
deliberation?" asked Uncle, displeased at the interruption.
"Why, Bake, there's scarcely ten days, and how we'd feel if Nelly didn't
look well!" cried Aunt Frank; and we all broke out laughing at the bare
idea of my looking ill!
"I never saw any one to whom dress mattered so little," Aunt Marcia said,
as she folded up her silk knitting.
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