I tried not to laugh, but to save my life I couldn’t help it.
“Perhaps none of them will approve of me. Remember, madam grandmother, I am only a homespun mountain maid.”
“Ah, but we will transform you into a shining princess,” cried my grandmother excitedly. “I already have had that matter in mind.”
Then she clapped her jeweled old hands together as hard as she could, and when Martha came running, gasping: “Yessum, ole Miss, yessum, ole Miss,” grandmother said, like a potentate in the Arabian Nights:
“Have the chests brought.”
Then I remembered what Aunt Lorena had told me about the chests in which grandmother kept her old treasures. So I was to see these darling old brocades and crepes and embroideries! Aunt Lorena thought it would be a dreadful thing to have to dress in them, but I was wild to do it. It seemed a part of all the strange play that my life had become.
So presently two of the men servants came staggering in under the weight of a great chest, and when they had set that down they went back for another, and then for another yet.
I wouldn’t have the chests opened till I had looked all over the outside of them. One was covered with carmine leather all tooled with gilt, and it had a great clasp with cupids on it. Another was of dark carved wood, very heavy, and lined with sandalwood that filled the whole room with an old, dry perfume when it was opened. The other was a sea chest with a sailor’s name carved on it.
“‘Samuel Bings,’” said I. “What a funny name.”
My grandmother frowned.