"Brewers' wives from the west, and unknown quantities; people who come to
New York to see and be seen," he answered carelessly; but almost as he
spoke his words were checked by the entrance of an equally gorgeous
group, composed of those who Lavinia Dorman had assured us were among the
most conservative of our new neighbours, all talking aloud, as if to an
audience, as they literally swept into the dining room, where Mrs. Center
was already seated. To be sure, the clothes, in their cases, were worn
with a difference,--the ease of habit,--but to all outward appearance the
distinction began and ended there. Ah me! to think of having such things
cross the horizon in May, when, unless one is forced to be miserable, one
must be inexpressibly happy.
I have been working all the month in my garden, as of old, or trying to,
at least, but upon the principle that no member of a community can either
live or die wholly to, or by, himself, I here missed the untrammelled
liberty of yore. Not that I care if I am detected collarless, in a brown
holland apron, with earthy fingers, and sometimes even a smutty nose, but
the Whirlpoolers, unable to regard the work as serious, do not hesitate
to interrupt, if nothing more.
Imagine the assurance of the twenty-two-year-old Ponsonby girl, who came
dashing up all of a fume last Saturday morning, when I was comfortably
seated on the old tea tray, transplanting a flat of my best ostrich
plume asters, and begging me, her mother being away, to chaperon her to
a ball game, in a town not far off up the railroad, with harmless,
pink-eyed Teddy Tice, one of her brother's college mates.
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