Sevenoaks: A Story of TodayHolland, J. G. (Josiah Gilbert)
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Sevenoaks: A Story of Today
Holland, J. G. (Josiah Gilbert)
Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
They all descended to breakfast together. Jim was quiet under the
feeling that his clothes were an unnatural expression of himself, and
that his words would make them a mockery. He was awed, too, by the
presence of Mrs. Balfour, who met him at the table for the first time in
her life. The sharp-eyed, smiling Yankee girls who waited at the meal,
were very much devoted to Jim, who was ashamed to receive so much
attention. On the whole, it was the most uncomfortable breakfast he had
ever eaten, but his eyes were quick to see all that was done, for he was
about to open a hotel, and wished particularly to learn the details of
the table service.
There was great excitement, too, at the parsonage that morning. The
Misses Snow were stirred by the romance of the occasion. They had little
enough of this element in their lives, and were disposed to make the
most of it when it came. The eldest had been invited to accompany the
bride to Number Nine, and spend a few weeks with her there. As this was
accounted a great privilege by the two younger sisters, they quietly
shelved her, and told her that they were to have their own way at home;
so Miss Snow became ornamental and critical. Miss Butterworth had spent
the night with her, and they had talked like a pair of school-girls
until the small hours of the morning. The two younger girls had slept
together, and discussed at length the duties of their respective
offices. One was to do the bride's hair and act as the general
supervisor of her dress, the other was to arrange the flowers and take
care of the guests. Miss Butterworth's hair was not beautiful, and how
it was to be made the most of was the great question that agitated the
hair-dresser. All the possibilities of braid and plait and curl were
canvassed. If she only had a switch, a great triumph could be achieved,
but she had none, and, what was worse, would have none. A neighbor had
sent in a potted white rose, full of buds and bloom, and over this the
sisters quarreled. The hair would not be complete without the roses, and
the table would look "shameful" if the pot did not stand upon it,
unshorn of a charm. The hair-dresser proposed that the stems which she
was bent on despoiling should have some artificial roses tied to them,
but the disgraceful project was rejected with scorn. They wrangled over
the dear little rose-bush and its burden until they went to sleep--the
one to dream that Miss Butterworth had risen in the morning with a new
head of hair that reached to her knee, in whose luxuriance she could
revel with interminable delight, and the other that the house was filled
with roses; that they sprouted out of the walls, fluttered with beads of
dew against the windows, strewed the floor, and filled the air with
odor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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