Family life -- Juvenile fiction; New England -- Juvenile fiction; Women college graduates -- Juvenile fiction
"But the inside of the house--oh, horrors! I don't believe a ray of
sunshine has gotten into it since the year one, and if it did, it would
be shut out mighty fast. Dad would go wild with delight over the old
furniture, and the dishes are beautiful, but the wallpaper looks like
green lobsters crawling all around, and you walk on brown-red roses as
big as cabbages. Does it torture my artistic soul? Oh, ye gods! And
my own room! No wonder that other Anne Leavitt died! I never saw so
many tidies in my life--I shall never draw a happy breath among them.
Oh, I can shut my eyes, right now and see the dear old tower room--you
sitting in the middle of the bed (unmade, of course), playing your uke,
Anne digging at her French Four on the window seat along with the fudge
dishes which I forgot to wash, and a week's muss all around us. Oh,
Claire, _weren't_ we happy, though? And to think it's all over.
"Aunt Sabrina is very handsome and very Leavitty. I think Anne, in her
manner, when we've done something she doesn't approve of, is like her
Aunt Sabrina. She's very tall and parts her hair straight in the
middle and has the longest, straightest nose and a way of talking to
you that makes you feel like an atom. B'lindy, who is the
woman-of-all-work around Happy House, but Somebody, just you believe,
is very much like Aunt Sabrina and looks at you as if she could see the
littlest thought way back in your mind. And, of course, with me acting
a part and feeling as guilty as can be, you can imagine that I don't
enjoy B'lindy's searching glance! However, I asked her some questions
about the Leavitts and it warmed her up a little.
"But there is an Aunt Milly that Anne didn't seem to know about and,
Claire, _she_ is human--the dearest, sweetest, prettiest, timidest
little thing. You can't tell, looking at her, whether she is old or
not, but being my great-aunt--or Anne's--I suppose she is. But she is
an invalid and evidently can't walk. There's something about her that
makes you feel dreadfully sorry for her and like taking care of her,
and I sort of imagine that for some reason or other Aunt Sabrina treats
her horridly. When Aunt Sabrina comes into the room, poor Aunt Milly
acts scared to death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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