"La! mamma," said Augusta, "I should as soon expect you to write a book as to read one."
There was a pause for a minute or two. Augusta then leaning back towards her mother, exclaimed, "Upon second thoughts, I think I will have the green pelerine scolloped, and the blue one pointed. But the points shall be squared at the ends—on that I am determined."
Laura now took up a volume of the juvenile annual, entitled the Pearl, and said to Augusta, "You have most probably a complete set of the Pearl."
"After all, mamma," pursued Augusta, "butterfly bows are much prettier than shell-bows. What were you saying just now, Miss Lovel, about my having a set of pearls?—you may well ask;"—looking spitefully towards the back-parlour, in which her father was sitting. "Papa holds out that he will not give me a set till I am eighteen; and as to gold chains, and corals, and cornelians, I am sick of them, and I won't wear them at all; so you see me without any ornaments whatever, which you must think very peculiar."
Laura had tact enough to perceive that any further attempt at a conversation on books would be unavailing; and she made some inquiry about the annual exhibition of pictures at the Athenæum.
"I believe it is a very good one," replied Mrs. Brantley. "We stopped there one day on our way to dine with some friends out of town. But as the carriage was waiting, and the horses were impatient, we only stayed a few minutes, just long enough to walk round."
"Oh! yes, mamma," cried Augusta; "and don't you recollect we saw Miss Darford there in a new dress of lavender-coloured grenadine, though grenadines have been over these hundred years. And there was pretty Mrs. Lenham, as the gentlemen call her, in a puce-coloured italianet, though italianets have been out for ages. And don't you remember Miss Grover's canary-coloured reps bonnet, that looked as if it had been made in the ark. The idea of any one wearing reps! a thing that has not been seen since the flood! Only think of reps!"
Laura Lovel wondered what reps could possibly be. "Now I talk of bonnets," pursued Augusta; "pray, mamma, did you tell Miss Pipingcord that I would have my Tuscan Leghorn trimmed with the lilac and green riband, instead of the blue and yellow?"
"Indeed," replied Mrs. Brantley, "I found your cousin Mary so extremely ill this afternoon when I went to see her, and my sister so very uneasy on her account, that I absolutely forgot to call at the milliner's, as I had promised you."
"Was there ever anything so vexatious!" exclaimed Augusta, throwing down her bead-work. "Really, mamma, there is no trusting you at all. You never remember to do anything you are desired." And flying to the bell, she rang it with violence.