"There's no use in discussing matters, Nellie. Give me the patterns and the laces," said Aunt Maria, obdurately. "Here! I'll sort 'em out. You never have anything ready," she said, opening her sister's drawer, and taking right and left such articles as she deemed proper, with as much composure as if her sister had been a seven-year-old child. "There!" she said, shutting the drawer, "now I'm ready. Good morning!"—and away she sailed, leaving her sister abased in spirit, and vaguely contrite for she couldn't tell what.
Aunt Maria had the most disagreeable habit of venting her indignation on her sister, by going to most uncomfortable extremes of fatiguing devotion to her service. With a brow of gloom and an air of martyrdom, she would explore shops, tear up and down stair-cases, perform fatiguing pilgrimages for Nellie and the girls; piling all these coals of fire on their heads, and looking all the while so miserably abused and heart-broken that it required stronger discrimination than poor Mrs. Van Arsdel was gifted with not to feel herself a culprit.
"Only think, your Aunt Maria says she won't go this evening," she said in a perplexed and apprehensive tone to her girls.
"Glad of it," said Alice, and the words were echoed by Angelique.
"Oh, girls, you oughtn't to feel so about your aunt!"
"We don't," said Alice, "but as long as she feels so about us, it's just as well not to have her there. We girls are all going to do our best to make the first evening a success, so that everybody shall have a good time and want to come again; and if Aunt Maria goes in her present pet, she would be as bad as Edgar Poe's raven."
"Just fancy our having her on our hands, saying 'nevermore' at stated intervals," said Angelique, laughing; "why, it would upset everything!"
"Angelique, you oughtn't to make fun of your aunt," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, with an attempt at reproving gravity.
"I'm sure it's the nicest thing we can make of her, Mammy dear," said Angelique; "it's better to laugh than to cry any time. Oh, Aunt Maria will keep, never fear. She'll clear off by-and-by, like a northeast rain-storm, and then we shall like her well as ever; sha'n't we, girls?"