"Don't shut up like a knife, Rhoda," she said, disconsolately. "Let yourself go. There, I believe the Lawrence side of the family is waking up at last!"
She looked so pretty as she danced in the firelight that I tried to be like her. I copied her courtesies, and followed her steps, and when, at length, she fell breathlessly into a chair, I leaned against her knee with my hand on her pink cheek.
"Auntie May, are you going, too?" I asked, confidentially.
Somehow I thought it would be rather nice to have Auntie May there, just for company.
"Child!" she cried, with a grand air, "it's a children's party. I am sixteen!"
I felt the rebuke. I was only seven myself, and there were whole centuries between us. It was strange, though, how sometimes Auntie May would play with my dolls, and sometimes she would tuck up her hair and keep me at arm's length. I never knew which she was going to be—little girl or grown woman.
Auntie May did not live with us, but in another house with a lady who called herself my frivolous grandmother, and curled her hair every day of her life. Grandmother Harcourt wore sober black silk dresses, but this other grandmother liked blue and pink, and even sometimes a gallant touch of red that made her look almost young again. Whenever she looked her youngest, she was greatly pleased, and curled her hair triumphantly. At family meetings the two grandmothers often made those curls the subject for discussion, and oftener still it was my dress and manners which never seemed to suit either of them. One wanted me very quiet and subdued, and dressed in gingham, and the other wanted me very gay and lively, and dressed in silk. As grandmother Harcourt lived in our house, she had the advantage, and, save for occasional bursts of splendor, I went in great meekness of spirit and dress.
I had thought at first that there was going to be trouble about the party. My frivolous grandmother objected seriously to the idea of that tuck. She seemed to think that I should look very shabby among the other little girls. She spoke of her position, and of the great pleasure that it would give her to buy me a dress.
"Nellie," she urged, almost with tears in her eyes, "let me buy Rhoda a suitable dress. You surely don't want that unfortunate child to go to the Otway's with a tuck let down!"