“I don’t believe you are one half so stupid as you pretend; you know what it is as well as I do.”
“I ought to,” said Lily, thoughtfully; “but I had an idea you were referring to Marion, and she is distinctly high-born, as the peak which has the honor of being her birthplace is, to speak strictly within bounds, at least one trillion and fifteen feet above the level of the very tallest high-water mark.”
“I was referring to Mary Ann,” said Edna, angrily, “and she is a low, common thing, and you know it in spite of all the absurd nonsense you are saying about it. Can’t you see for yourself that she is just the opposite of all the rest of us?”
“Then you mean we are high, uncommon things? I am sure I’m greatly obliged to you, but somehow I don’t feel charmed at being described that way.”
The girls were all laughing, for Lily had a ridiculous, world-weary manner of uttering her tantalizing remarks that was extremely amusing, and Edna was losing her temper so fast that there might soon have been a disagreeable scene had not a pleasant interruption come in the form of a basket of the reddest and shiniest baldwins, with “Mammy Candace’s best compliments, and would the young ladies please accept the apples with her ’bligingest duty?”
It was beginning to be noticed all through the school that any special kindness or favor shown to Elfie was always recognized by the faithful black nurse, who invariably attempted to return it in some quaint, humble way, and the S. C.’s were quite accustomed to these touching thank-offerings.
CHAPTER XII.
DRESSING DOLLS.
Even if girls are as tall as their mothers they have a deep, if unconfessed, interest in dolls; so Mrs. Abbott’s girls responded very willingly to an appeal from a mission school in New York for fifty dolls’ costumes. A toy merchant of benevolent disposition had presented the mission with two hundred unclad dolls, and the dressing of all but fifty were provided for. Mrs. Abbott advised taking only twenty-five, but her scholars insisted on the whole number. A very large box of silks, satins, cashmeres, and other gatherings from kindly disposed milliners and dress-makers accompanied the dolls, and the spare room was turned into a workshop and the spare bed into a depository for dolls in every stage of dressing. As fast as each one was fully dressed it was laid tenderly away in a bureau drawer.
Miss Blake and Mrs. Abbott helped the younger girls, who sewed the garments after they were cut out. But all who had skill enough to do it dressed the dolls without assistance, and costumed them very much as they pleased; so there was a great variety. There were German peasants, Roman and Breton peasants, sailor girls and boys, infants and fine ladies, grandmothers and French nurses, Scotch lassies and coal-black Dinahs. But each doll, whether she resembled a princess or peasant, had clothes that would come off and go on, and the sewing was carefully done and the button-holes were highly commendable.