"Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're comin'. Mother! mother!"
Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. Bell rings. Enter the first
set of visitors. The Event of the Season has begun.
"Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I do believe Mahala's come in
that old green de-laine she wore at the Surprise Party!"
Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of the door and made this
observation and the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude of
attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters conversing in
the attiring-room, up one flight.
"How fine everything is in the great house!" said Mrs. Crane,--"jest
look at the picters!" "Matildy Sprowle's drawins," said Ada Azuba, the
eldest daughter.
"I should think so," said Mahala Crane, her younger sister,--a
wide-awake girl, who hadn't been to school for nothing, and performed a
little on the lead pencil herself. "I should like to know whether
that's a hay-cock or a mountain!"
Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome,
executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into mellow
harmony,--the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, and the
kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one hour.
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