Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/304

286 she went down to the little kitchen to get tea ready. When she returned with the tray, cousin Joan looked much more cheerful than was her wont at this time of  day.

“After you ’ve had your tea, Amy,” she said, “I wish that you’d ask your mother to open that trunk of mine  that she sent to the store-room. There’s a green paste-board box,—a large one,—just under the tray, and I wish that she ’d bring it to me. Here’s the key.”

When Mrs. Redmond and Amy went in to cousin Joan’s room with the green box, the old woman seemed rather  excited. “Let me see it!” she said, putting out her hands rather eagerly, and trying to untie the pink tape  which held the cover securely.

Mrs. Redmond helped the old woman, for her trembling hands did not seem equal to the task.

When the cover was removed, she turned back a layer of some tissue paper that was near the top, and there, beneath it, lay some white material.

“Lift it out,” she said; “lift it out, Amy, I want you to see it!”

“Certainly,” responded Amy, lifting the soft web over her carefully with both hands, and taking it to the old  lady.

“There!” exclaimed cousin Joan, pulling a string which held the folds in place; “it looks all right, does n’t it? ”

Before them rippled a mass of creamy white material, transparent, like muslin, yet silkier.

“How lovely!” cried Amy. “What is it, cousin Joan?”