"I like to hear little people talk," said Nannie; "a great deal of useful information can be obtained from them. You seem to have a wonderful faculty, Agnes, for putting this and that together; but I have a little sister at home that is almost equal to you."
"Give it to me, Peter," said Virginia, springing forward to take the offered prize; "the others seem to be absorbed in such an interesting discussion that they will not care about it."
But, notwithstanding this assertion, the cover was no sooner torn off, which Bessie took an opportunity, when unobserved, to slip into her pocket, than the four heads were crowded together over the engravings and fashion plate with an eagerness and delight that it would be difficult to express. For the first few minutes they all talked at once, exclaiming, "Isn't this pretty?" "Isn't it lovely?" "I wonder what it means!" "Let's read the story about it."
"Do look, what an odd fashion! It is pretty, though. I mean to make my new dress so."
"See here, girls," said Mr. Egerton, leaning over the veranda, "if you go on in that way I shall have to make the same rule the Scotch laird did with his thirteen daughters—that not more than seven of them should speak at a time. What has caused this outburst of enthusiasm?"
"The 'Lady's Book,' pa," said Bessie. "Look at that picture; isn't it beautiful?"
"It is, indeed," replied he, taking the "Book." "How much they have improved lately in the art of engravings! Why, when I was a boy, a picture like that would have been considered wonderfully fine, and would have been carefully laid away and preserved as a rare treasure; and now they are flying about on the wings of the post-office department into the most distant parts and by-places of the country. They must be of no small advantage in cultivating the taste of the community, coming as they do to many persons who see but few other books during the year. Here, Bessie, you had better take the 'Book' to your mother; she is always pleased to see it, and this evening we will have a family reading party."
Excusing herself to her companions, Bessie hastened to comply with her father's suggestion, but returned with the welcome arrival after a few minutes, when an animated discussion was held over the fashion-plates and the descriptions of them. The conversation was serious and earnest. No assembly of divines ever debated a knotty point in theology with more intent gravity than these young girls wasted over the questions as to whether bodices, which were evidently going out, were not in the main superior to round waists, which were coming in; whether basques were likely to be a permanent fashion, or a mere fleeting freak of fancy, was also warmly discussed; and the question of trailing skirts, or those just long enough to touch the ground, might have caused a schism, if Bessie, with great presence of mind, had not changed the conversation to the arrangement of the hair. Here all differences were swept away by the unanimous agreement that bandeaux of curls, à la Jenny Lind, was a much prettier and easier way of dressing the head than any other.
A summons to tea interrupted all farther discussion. After tea, the whole family assembled, as was their custom, in Mrs. Egerton's room. Mr. Egerton, without his hat, which many Southerners seem to think as useful in the house as out of it, was seated in the large arm-chair by the side of a blazing fire, which the chilliness of the evenings still rendered necessary; Nannie heaped up the cushions on the lounge, a home-made, chintz-covered affair, and made herself perfectly comfortable; the other two girls, constituting themselves the readers for the rest, seated themselves by the centre-table; while Agnes sometimes sat on the bed by her mother, and sometimes hung over the reader, to make sure with her own eyes that they were scrupulously giving each word—skipping was, in her eyes, a most unjustifiable and unpardonable act.
"There is still enough to occupy us to-morrow evening," said Bessie, as she closed the "Book;" "but it is time now for mother to go to sleep."