These girls were Clover and Elsie Carr, and it was Clover's first
evening dress for which they were hemming ruffles. It was nearly two
years since a certain visit made by Johnnie to Inches Mills, of which
some of you have read in "Nine Little Goslings;" and more than three
since Clover and Katy had returned home from the boarding-school at
Hillsover.
Clover was now eighteen. She was a very small Clover still, but it would
have been hard to find anywhere a prettier little maiden than she had
grown to be. Her skin was so exquisitely fair that her arms and wrists
and shoulders, which were round and dimpled like a baby's, seemed cut
out of daisies or white rose leaves. Her thick, brown hair waved and
coiled gracefully about her head. Her smile was peculiarly sweet; and
the eyes, always Clover's chief beauty, had still that pathetic look
which made them irresistible to tender-hearted people.
Elsie, who adored Clover, considered her as beautiful as girls in
books, and was proud to be permitted to hem ruffles for the dress in
which she was to burst upon the world. Though, as for that, not much
"bursting" was possible in Burnet, where tea-parties of a middle-aged
description, and now and then a mild little dance, represented "gayety"
and "society." Girls "came out" very much, as the sun comes out in the
morning,--by slow degrees and gradual approaches, with no particular
one moment which could be fixed upon as having been the crisis of the
joyful event.
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