Nancy stared around. There on the table stood two sweet-grass baskets
exactly alike.
"The Princess came again, and she had another basket. I got it for you,"
said Flora.
"Thank you," said Nancy, in a sober voice, but the dark depths of the
Shaker bonnet seemed fairly illumined with smiles.
MEHITABLE LAMB
Hannah Maria Green sat on the north door-step, and sewed over and over a
seam in a sheet. She had just gotten into her teens, and she was tall
for her age, although very slim. She wore a low-necked, and
short-sleeved, brown delaine dress. That style of dress was not
becoming, but it was the fashion that summer. Her neck was very thin,
and her collar-bones showed. Her arms were very long and small and
knobby. Hannah Maria's brown hair was parted from her forehead to the
back of her neck, braided in two tight braids, crossed in a flat mass at
the back of her head, and surmounted by a large green-ribbon bow. Hannah
Maria kept patting the bow to be sure it was on.
It was very cool there on the north door-step. Before it lay the wide
north yard full of tall waving grass, with some little cinnamon
rose-bushes sunken in it. Hardly anybody used the north door, so there
was no path leading to it.
It was nearly four o'clock. Hannah Maria bent her sober freckled face
over the sheet, and sewed and sewed. Her mother had gone to the next
town to do some shopping, and bidden her to finish the seam before she
returned.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186