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I should have enjoyed staying there, but we'd only been in a short
while when Mrs. Blackwood's daughter came and carried us younger ones
off to the drawing-room again. In vain Nannie and I politely protested
that we should rather stay in the library; Mrs. Endicott was not to be
resisted. "Your father and my mother enjoy looking at books more than
anything else," she said pleasantly, as we made our reluctant way back;
"but I know that young people like to be where there are life and
gaiety,--and you haven't even had a cup of chocolate. Come this way,
and I'll introduce you to Miss Devereaux."
She piloted us rapidly through the crowd to the upper end of the room,
where at a table sat a young lady pouring chocolate, to whom she
introduced us.
Taking my "thimbleful" of chocolate, I retreated to a corner where I
could sit and sip and take observations unobserved. To begin with, I
could not but notice the difference in my two sisters. Nannie had found
a place on a lounge near the tea-table, and was gazing about her with
the deepest interest,--her brown eyes all a-shine, the faintest ripple
of a smile stirring her lips; to my eyes she looked very sweet! Nora
stood, cup in hand, sipping her chocolate, and chatting as easily to
Miss Devereaux and the different ones who came up as if she were in the
habit of going to afternoon receptions every day in the week.
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