Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/183



" comin' this yeh time a' yeah so's 't'll seem mo' soft an' homelike. Ah gaiss she go'n' a' sprighten raght up when she see th' summeh time all pleasant."

Thus Clem said to me a few weeks later, and I praised his thoughtfulness. But I nursed misgivings both for Miss Caroline and for Little Arcady. How would they take each other? I conceived Miss Caroline to be a formidable person whom Little Miss resembled, Clem said, "as aigs look lahk aigs." No further detail could I elicit from him save that his Mistress was "not fleshily inclahned," and that Little Miss was "sweetah'n honey on a rag!"

They would find our summer acceptable, even after a Southern summer heavy-sweet with magnolia and jasmine, honeysuckle and mimosa; with spirea and bridal-wreath and white-blossomed sloe trees. And the house as put to rights by Clem would be found at least endurable. It had not the solid grace nor the columned front of the houses I had somewhat hurriedly admired in the Southland some years before, but its lower rooms were wide, its windows