The deep red
of the curtain behind, threw out these two little figures well.
Dawson came up. She was a grave elderly person, of whom Erminia was far
more afraid than she was of her aunt; but at Mrs. Buxton's desire she
finished mending the frock for Maggie.
"Mr. Buxton has asked some of your mamma's old friends to tea, as I am not
able to go down. But I think, Dawson, I must have these two little girls to
tea with me. Can you be very quiet, my dears; or shall you think it dull?"
They gladly accepted the invitation; and Erminia promised all sorts of
fanciful promises as to quietness; and went about on her tiptoes in such
a labored manner, that Mrs. Buxton begged her at last not to try and be
quiet, as she made much less noise when she did not. It was the happiest
part of the day to Maggie. Something in herself was so much in harmony with
Mrs. Buxton's sweet, resigned gentleness, that it answered like an echo,
and the two understood each other strangely well. They seemed like old
friends, Maggie, who was reserved at home because no one cared to hear what
she had to say, opened out, and told Erminia and Mrs. Buxton all about her
way of spending her day, and described her home.
"How odd!" said Erminia. "I have ridden that way on Abdel-Kadr, and never
seen your house."
"It is like the place the Sleeping Beauty lived in; people sometimes seem
to go round it and round it, and never find it.
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