The Butterfly House by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
page 46 of 201 (22%)
page 46 of 201 (22%)
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the furniture was covered with rosebud chintz.
While their mother was indignantly sailing across the North River, her daughters lay awake, building air-castles about themselves and their boy-lovers, which fevered their imaginations, and aged them horribly in a spiritual sense. "Amy White's mother plays dominoes with her every evening," Maida remarked. Her voice sounded incredibly old, full of faint derisiveness and satire, but absolutely non-complaining. "Amy White's mother would look awfully funny in a gown like Mamma's," said Adelaide. "I suppose that is why she plays dominoes with Amy," said Maida in her old voice. "Oh, don't talk any more, Maida, I want to go to sleep," said Adelaide pettishly, but she was not in the least sleepy. She wished to return to the air-castle in which she had been having sweet converse with Jim Carr. This air-castle was the abode of innocence, but it was not yet time for its building at all. It was such a little childish creature who lay curled up under the coverlid strewn with rosebuds that the gates of any air-castle of life and love, and knowledge, however innocent and ignorant, should have been barred against her, perhaps with dominoes. However, she entered in, her soft cheeks burning, and her pulse tingling, and saw the strange light through its fairy windows, and her sister also entered her air-castle, and all the time their mother |
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