Everybody had gone out of the
house on various errands. The Doctor, with implicit faith, had
surrendered himself to Mrs. Scudder and Miss Prissy, to be conveyed up
to Newport, and attend to various appointments in relation to his outer
man, which he was informed would be indispensable in the forthcoming
solemnities. Madame de Frontignac had also gone to spend the day with
some of her Newport friends. And Mary, quite well pleased with the
placid and orderly stillness which reigned through the house, sat
pleasantly murmuring a little tune to her sewing, when suddenly the
trip of a very brisk foot was heard in the kitchen, and Miss Cerinthy
Ann Twitchel made her appearance at the door, her healthy glowing cheek
wearing a still brighter color from the exercise of a three-mile walk
in a July day.
"Why, Cerinthy," said Mary, "how glad I am to see you!"
"Well," said Cerinthy, "I have been meaning to come down all this week,
but there's so much to do in haying-time,--but to-day I told mother I
_must_ come. I brought these down," she said, unfolding a dozen snowy
damask napkins, "that I spun myself, and was thinking of you almost all
the while I spun them, so I suppose they aren't quite so wicked as they
might be.
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