Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"Margot," she confided, "this morning when I was angry I was like
that--I wanted to throw things, only I hadn't anything just then to
throw--but when I was little I did--my bath sponge, you know, and once
a key--" she grew thoughtful, "the key to the storeroom where
Mademoiselle hid things--Margot, you won't hide these things, will
you?" she hugged a wee muff jealously to her breast, "You won't, will
you?"
Margot chuckled and shrugged her shoulders. The room was filled with
the finery she had dragged from the tall wardrobe. On the chairs, over
the bed, hanging from the pegs of the cupboard, of every conceivable
color and shape, those forgotten clothes glimmered and shone.
"These are the oldest of all--" Margot was kneeling and tugging at a
carved cedar chest that was under the bed, "These are the things that
belonged to the first one of you, the things that belonged to Prudence
Langhorne." She dragged the chest triumphantly to the girl's side. "On
top,--" the odor of the cedar was wafted out into the room like the
odor of the pine plains through which Felice had been driving
yesterday, "here, these are things she had when she came to live in
this house that was built for her--plain enough, eh?" She spread the
gray stuffs and brown linsey woolseys out scornfully. Their voluminous
skirts and long tight sleeves and queer flat yellowed collars were
stupid enough in the midst of all the splendor about them. "But look,
now look, what she wore after she came--"
Felicia looked. And not even all the frills and fabrics that she had
already exclaimed over could compare with the loveliness of these
frocks of Mistress Prudence. They were so dainty, so fragile I With
their delicate yellowed laces! They were so soft and faded with age!
Each little frock was packed by itself in a yellowed linen case, each
had shoes and stockings and sometimes a gay little head dress folded
away with it. Short-waisted, scant skirted--
"Oh! Oh!" cried Felice, "these are the ones I love best of all! These
are the ones I'll wear! Oh Margot! That darling rosy one!" She bobbed
out of the chair excitably, "Look at the little silver shoes for it!
Oh Margot, dress me in it at once! Oh, Margot! How pretty I'll be for
dinner every day--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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