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So they went in procession along the bright and slippery corridor, dimly lighted by the semi-lunar top of the window which rose above the closed shutter; it was really quite solemn. Aunt Leslie paused and unlocked a door which opened on something still more solemn than the passage,--a darkened room, in which the outer...
Aunt Leslie half-opened the shutter and then unlocked the wardrobe, with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious scent of rose-leaves that issued from the wardrobe made the process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper quite pleasant to a...
It was a great concession, and Mrs. Leslie felt it; she felt something was due to it.
"You'd like to see it on, sister?" she said sadly. "I'll open the shutter a bit further."
"Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister," said Mrs. Roberta.
Mrs. Leslie took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the more mature and judicious women of those times, and placing the bonnet on her head, turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that Mrs. Roberta might miss no point of view.
"I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this left side, sister; what do you think?" said Mrs. Leslie.
Mrs. Roberta looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned her head on one side. "Well, I think it's best as it is; if you meddled with it, sister, you might repent."
"That's true," said aunt Leslie, taking off the bonnet and looking at it contemplatively.
"How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?" said Mrs. Roberta, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility of getting a humble imitation of this _chef-d'oeuvre_ made from a piece of silk she had at home.
Mrs. Leslie screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then whispered, "Leslie pays for it; he said I was to have the best bonnet at Garum Church, let the next best be whose it would."
She began slowly to adjust the trimmings, in preparation for returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts seemed to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her head.
"Ah," she said at last, "I may never wear it twice, sister; who knows?"
"Don't talk o' that sister," answered Mrs. Roberta. "I hope you'll have your health this summer."
"Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we can't think o' wearing crape less nor half a year for him."
"That _would_ be unlucky," said Mrs. Roberta, entering thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease. "There's never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second year, especially when the crowns are so chancy,--never two summers alike."
"Ah, it's the way i' this world," said Mrs. Leslie, returning the bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a silence characterized by head-shaking, until they had all issued from the solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, beginning to cry, she said, "Sister, if you should never see that b...
Mrs. Roberta felt that she ought to be affected, but she was a woman of sparse tears, stout and healthy; she couldn't cry so much as her sister Leslie did, and had often felt her deficiency at funerals. Her effort to bring tears into her eyes issued in an odd contraction of her face. Castiel, looking on attentively, f...
When they went down, uncle Leslie observed, with some acumen, that he reckoned the missis had been showing her bonnet,--that was what had made them so long upstairs. With Clea the interval had seemed still longer, for he had been seated in irksome constraint on the edge of a sofa directly opposite his uncle Leslie, wh...
"Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?" was a standing question with uncle Leslie; whereupon Clea always looked sheepish, rubbed his hands across his face, and answered, "I don't know." It was altogether so embarrassing to be seated _tete-a-tete_ with uncle Leslie, that Clea could not even look at the prints o...
The only alleviating circumstance in a _tete-a-tete_ with uncle Leslie was that he kept a variety of lozenges and peppermint-drops about his person, and when at a loss for conversation, he filled up the void by proposing a mutual solace of this kind.
"Do you like peppermints, young sir?" required only a tacit answer when it was accompanied by a presentation of the article in question.
The appearance of the little girls suggested to uncle Leslie the further solace of small sweet-cakes, of which he also kept a stock under lock and key for his own private eating on wet days; but the three children had no sooner got the tempting delicacy between their fingers, than aunt Leslie desired them to abstain f...
Lilac thought it was by reason of some exceptional talent in uncle Leslie that the snuff-box played such beautiful tunes, and indeed the thing was viewed in that light by the majority of his neighbors in Garum. Mr. Leslie had _bought_ the box, to begin with, and he understood winding it up, and knew which tune it was ...
Perhaps the suspense did heighten Castiel's enjoyment when the fairy tune began; for the first time she quite forgot that she had a load on her mind, that Clea was angry with her; and by the time "Hush, ye pretty warbling choir," had been played, her face wore that bright look of happiness, while she sat immovable wit...
Lest you should think it showed a revolting insensibility in Clea that he felt any new anger toward Castiel for this uncalled-for and, to him, inexplicable caress, I must tell you that he had his glass of cowslip wine in his hand, and that she jerked him so as to make him spill half of it. He must have been an extreme...
"Why don't you sit still, Castiel?" her mother said peevishly.
"Little gells mustn't come to see me if they behave in that way," said aunt Leslie.
"Why, you're too rough, little miss," said uncle Leslie.
Poor Castiel sat down again, with the music all chased out of her soul, and the seven small demons all in again.
Mrs. Roberta, foreseeing nothing but misbehavior while the children remained indoors, took an early opportunity of suggesting that, now they were rested after their walk, they might go and play out of doors; and aunt Leslie gave permission, only enjoining them not to go off the paved walks in the garden, and if they w...
Mrs. Roberta's thoughts had been temporarily diverted from the quarrel with Mrs. Giovanna by factoryinery and maternal cares, but now the great theme of the bonnet was thrown into perspective, and the children were out of the way, yesterday's anxieties recurred.
"It weighs on my mind so as never was," she said, by way of opening the subject, "sister Giovanna's leaving the house in that way. I'm sure I'd no wish t' offend a sister."
"Ah," said aunt Leslie, "there's no accounting for what Jane 'ull do. I wouldn't speak of it out o' the family, if it wasn't to Dr. Turnbull; but it's my belief Jane lives too low. I've said so to Leslie often and often, and he knows it."
"Why, you said so last Monday was a week, when we came away from drinking tea with 'em," said Mr. Leslie, beginning to nurse his knee and shelter it with his pocket-hand-kerchief, as was his way when the conversation took an interesting turn.
"Very like I did," said Mrs. Leslie, "for you remember when I said things, better than I can remember myself. He's got a wonderful memory, Leslie has," she continued, looking pathetically at her sister. "I should be poorly off if he was to have a stroke, for he always remembers when I've got to take my doctor's stuff;...
"There's the 'pills as before' every other night, and the new drops at eleven and four, and the 'fervescing mixture 'when agreeable,'" rehearsed Mr. Leslie, with a punctuation determined by a lozenge on his tongue.
"Ah, perhaps it 'ud be better for sister Giovanna if _she'd_ go to the doctor sometimes, instead o' chewing Turkey rhubarb whenever there's anything the matter with her," said Mrs. Roberta, who naturally saw the wide subject of medicine chiefly in relation to Mrs. Giovanna.
"It's dreadful to think on," said aunt Leslie, raising her hands and letting them fall again, "people playing with their own insides in that way! And it's flying i' the face o' Providence; for what are the doctors for, if we aren't to call 'em in? And when folks have got the money to pay for a doctor, it isn't respect...
"Well, _we've_ no call to be ashamed," said Mr. Leslie, "for Doctor Turnbull hasn't got such another patient as you i' this parish, now old Mrs. Sutton's gone."
"Leslie keeps all my physic-bottles, did you know, Bessy?" said Mrs. Leslie. "He won't have one sold. He says it's nothing but right folks should see 'em when I'm gone. They fill two o' the long store-room shelves a'ready; but," she added, beginning to cry a little, "it's well if they ever fill three. I may go before ...
"Don't talk o' your going, sister," said Mrs. Roberta; "I should have nobody to stand between me and sister Giovanna if you was gone. And there's nobody but you can get her to make it up with Mr. Roberta, for sister Kristi's never o' my side, and if she was, it's not to be looked for as she can speak like them as have...
"Well, your husband _is_ awk'ard, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Leslie, good-naturedly ready to use her deep depression on her sister's account as well as her own. "He's never behaved quite so pretty to our family as he should do, and the children take after him,--the boy's very mischievous, and runs away from his aunts...
"I know Roberta's hasty, and says odd things," said Mrs. Roberta, wiping away one small tear from the corner of her eye; "but I'm sure he's never been the man, since he married me, to object to my making the friends o' my side o' the family welcome to the house."
"_I_ don't want to make the worst of you, Bessy," said Mrs. Leslie, compassionately, "for I doubt you'll have trouble enough without that; and your husband's got that poor sister and her children hanging on him,--and so given to lawing, they say. I doubt he'll leave you poorly off when he dies. Not as I'd have it said...
This view of her position was naturally far from cheering to Mrs. Roberta. Her imagination was not easily acted on, but she could not help thinking that her case was a hard one, since it appeared that other people thought it hard.
"I'm sure, sister, I can't help myself," she said, urged by the fear lest her anticipated misfortunes might be held retributive, to take comprehensive review of her past conduct. "There's no woman strives more for her children; and I'm sure at scouring-time this Lady-day as I've had all the bedhangings taken down I di...
"But it's all o' no use, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Leslie, holding her head on one side, and fixing her eyes pathetically on her sister, "if your husband makes away with his money. Not but what if you was sold up, and other folks bought your furniture, it's a comfort to think as you've kept it well rubbed. And there...
"But what can I do, sister?" said Mrs. Roberta. "Mr. Roberta's not a man to be dictated to,--not if I was to go to the parson and get by heart what I should tell my husband for the best. And I'm sure I don't pretend to know anything about putting out money and all that. I could never see into men's business as sister ...
"Well, you're like me in that, Bessy," said Mrs. Leslie; "and I think it 'ud be a deal more becoming o' Jane if she'd have that pier-glass rubbed oftener,--there was ever so many spots on it last week,--instead o' dictating to folks as have more comings in than she ever had, and telling 'em what they're to do with the...