登陆注册
15453300000021

第21章 IX.(1)

The Milrays stayed through August, and Mrs. Milray was the ruling spirit of the great holiday of the summer, at Middlemount. It was this year that the landlords of the central mountain region had decided to compete in a coaching parade, and to rival by their common glory the splendor of the East Side and the West Side parades. The boarding-houses were to take part, as well as the hotels; the farms where only three or four summer folks were received, were to send their mountain-wagons, and all were to be decorated with bunting. An arch draped with flags and covered with flowers spanned the entrance to the main street at Middlemount Centre, and every shop in the village was adorned for the event.

Mrs. Milray made the landlord tell her all about coaching parades, and the champions of former years on the East Side and the West Side, and then she said that the Middlemount House must take the prize from them all this year, or she should never come near his house again. He answered, with a dignity and spirit he rarely showed with Mrs. Milray's class of custom, "I'm goin' to drive our hossis myself."

She gave her whole time to imagining and organizing the personal display on the coach. She consulted with the other ladies as to the kind of dresses that were to be worn, but she decided everything herself; and when the time came she had all the young men ravaging the lanes and pastures for the goldenrod and asters which formed the keynote of her decoration for the coach.

She made peace and kept it between factions that declared themselves early in the affair, and of all who could have criticized her for taking the lead perhaps none would have willingly relieved her of the trouble.

She freely declared that it was killing her, and she sounded her accents of despair all over the place. When their dresses were finished she made the persons of her drama rehearse it on the coach top in the secret of the barn, where no one but the stable men were suffered to see the effects she aimed at. But on the eve of realizing these in public she was overwhelmed by disaster. The crowning glory of her composition was to be a young girl standing on the highest seat of the coach, in the character of the Spirit of Summer, wreathed and garlanded with flowers, and invisibly sustained by the twelve months of the year, equally divided as to sex, but with the more difficult and painful attitudes assigned to the gentlemen who were to figure as the fall and winter months. It had been all worked out and the actors drilled in their parts, when the Spirit of Summer, who had been chosen for the inoffensiveness of her extreme youth, was taken with mumps, and withdrawn by the doctor's orders. Mrs. Milray had now not only to improvise another Spirit of Summer, but had to choose her from a group of young ladies, with the chance of alienating and embittering those who were not chosen. In her calamity she asked her husband what she should do, with but the least hope that he could tell her. But he answered promptly, "Take Clementina;

I'll let you have her for the day," and then waited for the storm of her renunciations and denunciations to spend itself.

"To be sure," she said, when this had happened, "it isn't as if she were a servant in the house; and the position can be regarded as a kind of public function, anyhow. I can't say that I've hired her to take the part, but I can give her a present afterwards, and it will be the same thing."

The question of clothes for Clementina Mrs. Milray declared was almost as sweeping in its implication as the question of the child's creation."

She has got to be dressed new from head to foot," she said, "every stitch, and how am I to manage it in twenty-four hours?"

By a succession of miracles with cheese-cloth, and sashes and ribbons, it was managed; and ended in a triumph so great that Mrs. Milray took the girl in her arms and kissed her for looking the Spirit of Summer to a perfection that the victim of the mumps could not have approached. The victory was not lastingly marred by the failure of Clementina's shoes to look the Spirit of Summer as well as the rest of her costume. No shoes at all world have been the very thing, but shoes so shabby and worn down at one side of the heel as Clementina's were very far from the thing.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 岁月匆匆

    岁月匆匆

    小学,初中,高中,大学,曾经的十二年的岁月,匆匆而过,你又曾经记得多少,那时的同学你又记得几个,又有几个还在联系。你喜欢过谁?你单恋过谁?你初恋是谁?你交往过谁?你和谁分手了?你和谁又复合了?
  • 穿越:情归何处

    穿越:情归何处

    温月:人家是灵魂穿越,我是身体穿越!人家只穿了一次,过完古代一生,我却在古代和现代穿来穿去!人家穿到古代都能嫁个高富帅,我却遇了个高富丑!还好还好,还有高和富,丑也罢了……可是,我真心咬不下去啊~~~
  • 人鱼的眼泪之天使爱人鹿晗

    人鱼的眼泪之天使爱人鹿晗

    一个在流星雨无意中坠落的天使爱上了一个人鱼,他们是两个不同的种族,不能相爱。他们的爱情经历了许多曲折、磨难和阻挠,终成眷属,永远在一起了。由此引发的一系列故事!
  • 帝国权柄

    帝国权柄

    十世纪的欧陆风起云涌,海峡对岸的英格兰上盎格鲁撒克逊王者们终于成功的灭亡了维京人的约克王国;西法兰克王国的加洛林王朝大厦将倾;伊比利亚半岛上的基督徒们在科尔多瓦哈里发国的威逼下只能在圣詹姆斯墓前瑟瑟发抖;保加利亚的西蒙四次兵临拜占庭最后却只能望着君士坦丁堡的城墙含恨而终;阿巴斯的苏丹们在巴格达的王宫里肆意寻欢,没有察觉到王座阴影下波斯廷臣们的窃窃私语;卡罗兰带着一千年的记忆来到了这个时代,骑士,领主,主教,卡罗兰内心归于何处
  • 法观经

    法观经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 无限之虚无

    无限之虚无

    这只是一场游戏,无所谓是谁发明,反正也只是一场游戏,最重要的是我在玩这场游戏就够了
  • 马尔萨斯学说新论

    马尔萨斯学说新论

    本书包含两大部分,第一部分是对马尔萨斯《人口原理》的重新研究和评价;第二部分是对马尔萨斯经济学理论各个组成部分的研究和评论。
  • 遗王

    遗王

    木洋望着天,嘴角留下一抹血红.伸手擦拭了下,便又踏着步伐继续前进.这个世界,不是你们说的算.吾为王,寰宇吾掌.
  • 军火召唤师

    军火召唤师

    神魔大陆上,万族林立,神魔族独尊大陆藐视众生,兽族规模庞大野心勃勃,海族统治海洋却对陆地觊觎极深,星族看破一切无欲无求,却似乎隐藏极深,唯我人族,寄人篱下飘忽不定,堪堪自保……面对日渐混乱的大陆,人族该何去何从?这究竟是人族崛起的大世,还是即将消亡的末日?本书一号书友群317665993欢迎各位加入一起来讨论情节哦。
  • 鲜妻重生:总裁,抱一抱

    鲜妻重生:总裁,抱一抱

    她是鲜嫩小娇妻,却被人推下了海。他是冷酷大总裁,却另有故事。重生后她发誓复仇,他深爱入骨。她一次错亲了他,他就上了瘾,一直纠缠着她。可恶,难道重生还有个男人纠缠着吗?【作者大大QQ3118256967】