Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 3.djvu/179

 too busy about her toilet to mind the baby, who was crying in the nursery.

"Lace me tightly. I'm growing stout, I do believe, and my figure will be ruined if I allow it," said madam; and Dimity squeezed her into such a light dress that Trip got a pain in her side directly. "I can bear it a little while, but I don't see how ladies can do it all the time,—it's dreadful!" she sighed, as Dimity piled her pretty hair in a fuzzy bunch on the top of her head, and hung jewels in her little ears, after putting costly bits of lace here and there, and poking her tiny feet into high-heeled boots that made her totter when she tried to walk. These and her train nearly tripped her up, for, if Dimity had not caught her, Mrs. Prance would have tumbled downstairs.

Hardly was she safe in the parlor when the bell rang, and Buttons showed in several very fashionable ladies, who sat down and began to talk about dress, servants, gentlemen, and the opera, so exactly like some of mamma's callers that Marnie wondered where the sly little moss people could have been hidden to know how to imitate them so well. As soon as one lady left, all the rest said sharp things