[CHAPTER XX.]
"Doth not the world show men a very Judas' part, and betray them unto Satan, saying, whom I kiss with a feigned sign of love, take them—torture them?"SUTTON.
"Mamma says," drawled out Grace, sauntering into the study one snowy morning, as I sat busy at my German, "mamma says, that as you write a good hand, you may direct these cards for her, and she will excuse you to Mr. Waschlager, if you don't have time to finish your German before he comes."
I could not help a slight exclamation of impatience as I relinquished my books, and took the long list of names and the basketful of blank envelopes that Grace handed me.
"How glad I am that I don't write a nice hand!" she ejaculated, as she threw herself lazily into a chair by the window, and leaning on her elbow, gazed out into the streets, now "dumb with snow," but where, before an hour was over, the jingling of an occasional sleigh-bell would be but a prelude to the merry music with which, till the snow vanished, they were to resound.
"I should think you'd be glad to get rid of your German; though, I suppose, it's only 'out of the frying-pan,' for you have a good morning's work before you in those precious cards."
I didn't trust myself to answer, and, after a pause, Grace went on:
"I should think mamma might have set Josephine to write those things herself, don't you? The party's all on her account, and she and Phil are doing nothing down in the library this morning."
Grace looked a little longer at the lessening snow-flakes, then continued, pleasantly:
"What shall you wear? For we've got to come down, mamma said so; and she said, too, that she didn't believe you had anything fit to wear."