Aunt Fanny and Aunt Lucy came over to San Rafael to spend the day. They had taken the nine-forty-five ferry to Sausalito and the ten-thirty train hence. There had been a change in the schedule the previous week, the boat formerly leaving at nine-forty now left at nine-forty-five, and the train, whose time had been ten-fifteen, now departed at ten-thirty. They had with difficulty adjusted themselves to these innovations.
All the female members of the Brewer family and their guests were assembled in the parlor. The Brewer girls ranged in age from twenty-four to twenty-eight years.
Aunt Fanny was an old maid with a flexible nose, which, when agitated, she used to beat. By the intervals between the blows and by their force, one could measure the depth of her agitation. She wore a blue foulard, trimmed with camel’s hair, flounced with calico and broadcloth and ornamented with passementrie and passepartout in contrasting colors.
Aunt Lucy was garbed in a crazy-quilt which she had made out of her former husband’s discarded neckties.
Mrs. Brewer and the girls wore the dresses described in the previous chapter.
“Have you heard of Amelia lately?” asked Mrs. Brewer.
“Who is Amelia?” asked Vicky, aged twenty-eight.
“Vicky, dearest, you shouldn’t ask Mamma such questions,” chided Mrs. Brewer. “Mamma doesn’t like it. Amelia is your third cousin once removed, the daughter of Aunt Caroline’s first husband, who was the son of his father, one of the Brewers of Milwaukee.”
“No,” replied Aunt Fanny, beating her nose gently. “But Rebecca’s mother, who was old Hannibal Crabtree’s niece by his marriage to Belinda Johnson, the sister of Cicero Tompkins, who was divorced from her uncle’s sister.”
“What about her?” said Esme.