There was the usual spring and summer dress-making for the ladies. Even Miss Cynthia, looking sharply at Hanny, said:—
"I don't see what's the matter with that child! I supposed she'd have everything outgrown, and some of her last summer's skirts won't need any letting down. They're wearing them shorter now; and you know, Cousin Underhill, you would have them made rather long last summer."
The little girl sometimes felt quite sore on the point. The Deans were getting to be tall girls, and even Daisy Jasper had taken to growing. And her lovely curls were quite long again. She certainly was very pretty.
But when Hanny took this trouble to her father, he only laughed and squeezed her in his arms, and sometimes rubbed her soft cheeks with his beard, his old trick, as he said:—
"But I want to keep you my little girl. I don't want you to grow big like Margaret. For if you should, some nice fellow will come along and insist upon carrying you off, and then I should lose you. Whatever would I do?"
That view of the matter was alarming to contemplate. She clung closer to her father, and said, in a half-frightened tone, that she never would be carried off. It quite reconciled her to the fact of not growing rapidly.
The girls all went down to see Nora Whitney one Saturday in June. It looked rather threatening in the morning, but a yard or two of blue sky gave them hope. Mr. Underhill took them all in the family carriage. Oh, how lovely the little park looked with its soft grass and waving trees! And in the area windows there were pots of flowers: ten-weeks' stock, and spice pinks, and geraniums that were considered quite a rarity.
Nora was out on the front stoop with Pussy Gray, who arched his back and waved his tail with an air of grandeur, and then sat down on the top step and began to wash his face, while Father Underhill was planning to take them all for a drive late in the afternoon.
Pussy Gray watched his little mistress out of one green eye, and washed over one ear. He was just going over the other when Nora caught him, "Why do you stop him?" asked Daisy.
"Because he wants to make it rain and spoil our day. Pussy Gray—if you do!"