THE GOLDEN LAMB.
"Oh, dear! this is one of her tantrums again!"
"Well, she is the funniest girl I ever did see."
"And it is only because I laughed at the way the forlorn old maid, whom she calls her dressmaker, had hunched that lovely lavender till it looks like a fright."
"See how she's jerking it, to make it fit."
"Hush, girls," broke in the mother; "that is not the way to improve her disposition. Don't be watching her; look out here at the window; see the number of sails coming in through the Golden Gate this morning."
The view from the bay-window in the second story front, which was used as a sitting-room for the ladies of the family, was certainly very grand this bright December morning, when the sun, shining from an unclouded sky, kissed the waters of the bay till they looked as clear as the heavens above, with millions of little golden stars rippling and flashing on the blue surface. But far more attractive to the two young ladies, who pretended to be counting the vessels in sight, was the view in the back-ground of the room, where a slender, petite figure, with head half-defiantly thrown back, was noting in the tall pier-glass the effects of the changes her quick fingers made in the lavender robe, whose silken folds were sweeping the carpet. The head was crowned with a glory of the brightest, lightest golden hair, while the eyes, flashing proudly from under the long silken lashes, were darker than midnight. Yet the sparkle and the laughter of the noonday sun were in them, when the cloud, just now resting on the child-like brow, was dispelled by a kind word or a sympathetic touch.
"There, Lola—it is perfect now," said Mrs. Wheaton, turning to her youngest daughter, and thus breaking the seal laid on the lips of her two older ones.
Matilda, good-hearted, and really loving her sister, in spite of her greater beauty and her "strange ways," meant to improve the opportunity.