"One of them must have," said Miss Ellen Burnham, "for the girl that was selling soap at the Ladds' in North Riverboro was described by Adam Ladd as the most remarkable and winning child he ever saw."
Ladd; and to think we can remember the time he was a barefoot boy without two shirts to his back!
"Clara Belle's got cross-eyes and red hair, but I'd be the last one to grudge her a Christmas present; the more Adam Ladd gives to her the less the town'll have to."
Ladd saying Adam remarked about this child's handsome eyes.
"I asked you who sold the soap to Adam Ladd?" resumed Miss Jane.
"Emma Jane sold her cakes to her own relations and to uncle Jerry Cobb, and I went first to those new tenements near the lumber mill, and then to the Ladds'.
Miss Ladd knew her business as a schoolmistress too well to allow night-lights; and Miss Ladd's young ladies were supposed to be fast asleep, in accordance with the rules of the house.
Having a private object of their own in view, the five wise virgins of Miss Ladd's first class had waited an hour, in wakeful anticipation of the falling asleep of the stranger--and it had ended in this way!
Strike a light, one of you, and lay the blame on me if Miss Ladd finds us out.
If, by some fantastic turn of events, a man--say in the interests of propriety, a married doctor, with Miss Ladd to look after him--had been permitted to enter the room, and had been asked what he thought of the girls when he came out, he would not even have mentioned Francine.
On this occasion, the feast was especially plentiful and expensive, in commemoration not only of the arrival of the Midsummer holidays, but of the coming freedom of Miss Ladd's two leading young ladies.
With what inexhaustible energy Miss Ladd's young ladies ate and drank!