“There! they are going to march,” cried the thin lady, as Mrs. Case blew her whistle and the girl on the rope slid the last few feet to the floor. “Grace is down, thank goodness!”
“Her music teacher says Grace’s ear is a regular gift—she keeps such good time.”
“I’m sure no sensible parent would ever have bought those ears,” whispered Mrs. Pendleton to Mrs. Belding. “They must have been a gift,” 27 for those organs on the agile Grace were painfully prominent.
“But she had such a pretty smile when she looked up at her mother just now,” whispered the kind-hearted Mrs. Belding.
“That reminds me,” said the society matron—though why it should have reminded her nobody knows! “That reminds me, my Lily is crazy to go camping—positively crazy!”
“I know,” sighed Mrs. Belding. “Laura is determined, too. And her father approves and has overruled all my objections.”
“Oh, it’s not that with me at all,” said Mrs. Pendleton, briskly. “I’m glad enough to have the child go. She’s too much advanced for her age, anyway. If she spends this summer at Newport, and Bar Harbor, and one or two other places where I positively must appear, I’ll never be able to get her back into school this fall.
“It ages a mother so to have a growing daughter—and one that is so forward as Lily,” said this selfish lady, fretfully. “Lily thinks she is grown up now. No. I approve of her going with a lot of little girls into camp. And she wants to go with your Laura’s crowd, Mrs. Belding.”
“I’m sure—Laura would be pleased,” said Mrs Belding, sweetly, without an idea that she was laying up trouble in store for Mother Wit. 28
“Oh, then, I can leave it with you, dear Mrs. Belding?” cried Mrs. Pendleton, with uncanny eagerness. “You will arrange it?”