The Little Colonel's House PartyJohnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows)
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The Little Colonel's House Party
Johnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows)
Girls -- Juvenile fiction; Kentucky -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Juvenile fiction
Mrs. Sherman tapped the wheel of the dog-cart with the lash of her whip,
and sat considering. Presently she said, "Of course there isn't any
truth in the fortunes they tell. One person knows just as much about the
future as another. But I am sorry for your disappointment, for I know at
your age such things are entertaining. How would it do for me to call at
Miss Allison MacIntyre's while I am out, and ask her to come up to
dinner to-night? She is a great friend of mine and knows enough about
palmistry to tell some very interesting fortunes. She can amuse young
people better than any one I ever knew. Her two nephews, Malcolm and
Keith MacIntyre, came out from Louisville for a short visit yesterday,
and I'll invite them, too. They are jolly boys, and I'm sure you will
find them far more entertaining than any of the gypsies. What do you say
to that plan? Will it make up for the disappointment?"
"Yes, indeed!" answered Betty, and Eugenia smiled her approval, for she
had heard Lloyd talk about the MacIntyre boys, and had been hoping to
see them. But when Mrs. Sherman had driven on, she turned to Betty with
an angry face.
"Tattletale," she said, in a sneering tone. "Why did you go and spoil
everything? If you had kept still we could have gone and nobody would
have been the wiser. Now it will be no end of trouble to get there
without her finding it out."
"You don't mean that you are going after all that godmother has said?"
cried Betty, with a look of horror in her big brown eyes. "Why, a wild
Arab wouldn't treat his host with such disrespect as that after he'd
eaten his salt."
Eugenia's black eyes flashed dangerously. "Yes, Miss Prunes and Prisms,
I am going, I don't care what you say. I have made up my mind to have my
fortune told by the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, that was
born on the banks of the Nile, and all the king's horses and all the
king's men can't make me change it again. It is foolish of Cousin
Elizabeth to be so particular, and I am going to do as I please. I
always do at home, no matter what papa says. I've never had to mind
anybody all my life, and I'll certainly not begin it now that I am in my
teens. It is all nonsense about it not being proper for us to go to the
camp. Cousin Elizabeth is mighty nice and sweet, but she's an old fogy
to talk that way. And she needn't think she has stopped me. I may not
get there to-day, but I'll go to that camp before I go back to New York
if it's the last thing I do."
She sprang out of the hammock and walked haughtily down the path, her
head held high, and her pink ruffles switching angrily from side to
side. Betty followed at a safe distance, reaching the house in time to
see Joyce and Lloyd come down, ready for their ride. She would have made
some excuse to stay at home if she thought that Eugenia intended to
carry out her plans at once; but thinking she would surely not attempt
it until a later day, she mounted with the others and started down the
avenue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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