But Little Jimmy Holmes’s wife had flown upstairs, and interfered with Jesse Jeffries and Sister McGafferty and a number of others. Serena lay upon a bed, and the air reeked with camphor.
“She’s overcome like,” explained Uncle Jesse.
“Let me get to her,” said Mrs. Holmes. Having got to her, Mrs. Holmes raised Serena’s head on her arm, and began to laugh.
“She’s comin’ out of it now,” observed Sister McGafferty. “All of you’d better go downstairs except Sister Holmes and me. Let her be without disturbin’ a while. We’ll have plenty of other chances to enjoy Sister Heddin’s company.”
The neighbors and Jesse went submissively downstairs, but Little Jimmy Holmes’s wife kept on laughing with some effort, as if she felt afraid of ending in a sob.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’ll be in the neighborhood again, Serene!” she said. “Things wouldn’t never been right in this world if they’d turned out the other way. Don’t look at me like you’s thinkin’ of the dead. But rouse up and feel better. There’s your Aunt Lindy and Hod standin’ at the gate: I can see ’em through the winder. They’re talkin’ mighty serious, and she don’t look so well satisfied as she did. But you must do well by her, Sereny. Give her the old spinnin’-wheel that stands in the smoke-house!”
ROSE DAY
Time, 1875
“I do believe this is rose day,” said Infant, standing on the top step of the veranda in delight.
“I know it’s soap-boiling day,” asserted her twin sister, who had been baptized Marilla Victoria when she was baptized Infanta Isabella, quite forty years before. These twins entered the world at a period when flowery, daring names were the extreme of fashion, and previous to a rebound to plain and strong Ann, Elizabeth, Mary, Hannah, Jane, and their various combinations. Infant came very near being labeled Lovey Lucilla, and she felt thankful for her escape, and even attached to her diminutive.