ELIZABETH ASHE is the pen name of Georgiana Pentlarge, a young and promising story-writer, living in Boston.
A reefer properly belongs in the category useful. Even in its second or third season of usefulness, it retains certain warm and comforting qualities. How its sphere of endeavor may be extended to include a divine mission of poetic justice, Miss Ashe unfolds in a delightfully humorous experience of two little girls—one very pretty and habitually urbane, the other very homely and rather crude. With reefers smothering all glories of Persian lawn and fine silk slips, we have two little girls arrived at the height of ecstatic self-forgetfulness in the excitement of giving a recitation for the Christmas entertainment.
Complete satisfaction, too, is the reader’s. What a delightful chuckle he gives over Aunt Emma’s chagrin at discovering that, in the matter of little girls, golden hair and pink cheeks, or freckles and a 'jaw,' make very little difference! Yet his chuckle, after all, is only an echo from an adult world, a world suggested to Martha by the vague whisperings of Father and Mother after she has gone to bed. Far more real is the world Miss Ashe has created, where Miss Miriam’s black dress and gold cross present a charming but insoluble mystery; where one is forced, however regretfully, to reconcile cotton-batting with a Sunday-School Christmas tree, and where 'it is so nice to be in things.'
Suggested Points for Study and Comment
1. Comment on the author’s use of detail. Does it create a real atmosphere?
2. Is the author successful in her interpretation of the mind of the small girl? Is the author’s own personality ever intruded? How is she able to secure the larger view of the events that take place?
3. Is the climax made more or less effective by the children’s unconsciousness of their act? Would you have preferred a more startling dénouement?
4. Why is Luella sketched so lightly? Is the contrast only between the two little girls?
5. How does Miss Miriam contribute to the interest in the story?