Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/136

130 of brocaded silk, where each large flower covered half a breadth; it had been a gown of her grandmother's, its gay colours had marvellously attracted her childish admiration, and she had never rested till a best frock had been made from its ample folds. Besides the hues of the rainbow in her garb, she had also decorated herself with divers strings of coloured beads and bugles, twisted about a neck and arms which eagerness and cold had dyed a double red. Moreover, she contemplated her curled head (her hair curled naturally) with no sort of satisfaction. She recalled the strangers dressed in dark green merino frocks, up to the throat and down to the wrist; the gloves, which were almost part of the hands they covered; the neat black slipper. Mabel thought to herself; "mine were down at heel:" and then their heads, the youngest had the hair simply parted back; in the second it was allowed to curl in the neck; the third had it also curled in the front, while Miss Harcourt, the eldest, had arrived at the dignity (and an epoch it is in a young lady's life) of having her hair turned up behind, and a comb. "She is hardly three years older than I am," thought Mabel.

Mabel's step was always light, and her voice