"What I aspired to be comforts me."--_Browning_.
It was late one evening in November; Prue had kissed them both good-night
and ran laughing up the broad staircase to bed; Miss Prudence had
finished her evening's work and evening's pleasure, and was now sitting
opposite Marjorie, near the register in the back parlor. A round table
had been rolled up between them upon which the shaded, bronze lamp was
burning, gas not having yet been introduced into old-fashioned Maple
Street. The table was somewhat littered and in confusion, Prue's
stereoscope was there with the new views of the Yosemite at which she had
been looking that evening and asking Aunt Prue numerous questions, among
which was "Shall we go and see them some day? Shall we go everywhere some
day?" Aunt Prue had satisfied her with "Perhaps so, darling," and then
had fallen silently to wondering why she and Prue might not travel some
day, a year in Europe had always been one of her postponed intentions,
and, by and by, how her child would enjoy it. Marjorie's books and
writing desk were on the table also, for she had studied mental
philosophy and chemistry after she had copied her composition and
written a long letter to her mother. Short letters were as truly an
impossibility to Marjorie as short addresses are to some public speeches;
still Marjorie always stopped when she found she had nothing to say. To
her mother, school and Miss Prudence and Prue's sayings and doings were
an endless theme of delight.
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