More and more intolerably quivers the atmosphere of
the sylvan oven with stifling fervency, until there oozes from beneath
the shingled crust of a vegetarian country-boarding-house a parboiled
guest from the City, who, believing himself almost ready to turn, drifts
feebly to where the roads fork and there is a shade more dun; while, to
the speculative mind, each glowing field of corn, or buckwheat, is an
incipient Meal, and each chimney, or barn, a mere temptation to guess
how many Swallows there may be in it.
Upon the afternoon of such a day as this, Miss POTTS is informed, by a
servant, that Mr. BUMSTEAD has arrived, and, sending her his love, would
be pleased to have her come down stairs to him and bring him a fan.
"Why didn't you tell him I wasn't at home, you absurd thing?" cries the
young girl, hurriedly practicing a series of agitated looks and pensive
smiles before her mirror.
"So I did, Miss," answers the attached menial, "but he'd seen you
looking at him with an opera-glass as he came up the path, and said that
he could hear you taking a clean handkerchief out of tho drawer, on
purpose to receive him with, before he'd got to the door."
"Oh, what shall I do? My hands are so red to-day!" sighs FLCKA, holding
her arms above her head, that the blood may retire from the too pinkish
members.
After a pause, and an adjustment of a curl over her right eye and the
scarf at her waist, to make them look innocent, she yields to the
meteorological mania so strikingly prevalent amongst all the other
characters of this narrative, and says that she will receive the visitor
in the yard, near the pump.
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