'As angels in some brighter dreams

Call to the soul when man doth sleep,

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,

And into glory peep.'

HENRY VAUGHAN.

Mrs. Hale was curiously amused and interested by the idea of the

Thornton dinner party. She kept wondering about the details, with

something of the simplicity of a little child, who wants to have

all its anticipated pleasures described beforehand. But the

monotonous life led by invalids often makes them like children,

inasmuch as they have neither of them any sense of proportion in

events, and seem each to believe that the walls and curtains

which shut in their world, and shut out everything else, must of

necessity be larger than anything hidden beyond. Besides, Mrs.

Hale had had her vanities as a girl; had perhaps unduly felt

their mortification when she became a poor clergyman's

wife;--they had been smothered and kept down; but they were not

extinct; and she liked to think of seeing Margaret dressed for a

party, and discussed what she should wear, with an unsettled

anxiety that amused Margaret, who had been more accustomed to

society in her one in Harley Street than her mother in five and

twenty years of Helstone.

'Then you think you shall wear your white silk. Are you sure it

will fit? It's nearly a year since Edith was married!'

'Oh yes, mamma! Mrs. Murray made it, and it's sure to be right;

it may be a straw's breadth shorter or longer-waisted, according

to my having grown fat or thin. But I don't think I've altered in

the least.' 'Hadn't you better let Dixon see it? It may have gone yellow with

lying by.' 'If you like, mamma. But if the worst comes to the worst, I've a

very nice pink gauze which aunt Shaw gave me, only two or three

months before Edith was married. That can't have gone yellow.'

'No! but it may have faded.'

'Well! then I've a green silk. I feel more as if it was the

embarrassment of riches.'

'I wish I knew what you ought to wear,' said Mrs. Hale,

nervously. Margaret's manner changed instantly. 'Shall I go and

put them on one after another, mamma, and then you could see

which you liked best?' 'But--yes! perhaps that will be best.'

So off Margaret went. She was very much inclined to play some

pranks when she was dressed up at such an unusual hour; to make

her rich white silk balloon out into a cheese, to retreat

backwards from her mother as if she were the queen; but when she

found that these freaks of hers were regarded as interruptions to

the serious business, and as such annoyed her mother, she became

grave and sedate. What had possessed the world (her world) to

fidget so about her dress, she could not understand; but that

very after noon, on naming her engagement to Bessy Higgins

(apropos of the servant that Mrs. Thornton had promised to

inquire about), Bessy quite roused up at the intelligence.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024