Frances A. Humphrey
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 64
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XV. THE MILITARY BALL. On the night of the ball Dolly early betook herself to the " ladies' drawing-room," so called. This was simply the big spare room, or bedchamber. A fire had been burning since dusk in the fireplace, but a chilliness, mingled with a faint odor of smoke, still lingered in the atmosphere of the room. In one corner stood a huge tent-bedstead, draped with Indian chintz, upon which strange birds of brilliant plumage perched among still stranger and more brilliant flowers. The window and dressingtable draperies were of the same pattern, so was the covering of the great arm-chair in the chimneycorner. I hesitate in telling you that this chair came over in the Mayflower. There is enough so-called Mayflower furniture in existence in this A. D. 1885 to have filled twice over a bigger vessel than that historic bark, whose tonnage, if I remember aright, fell considerably below two hundred. But this chair did really come over in the Mayflower, and landed at Plymouth December 21, 1620, with the rest of the Pilgrims. It certainly looked ancient enough and battered enough to have been in the Ark at the time of the Deluge, when Aunt Anna hid its age and shabbiness under the aforesaid Indian chintz, and stuffed it with the softest of live-geese feathers. It was a true Sleepy"Hollow, and Dolly sank into it with a keen sense of luxurious comfort. The interval of waiting was not long. She had snuffed the candles in the candelabra on either side of the mirror but once, when a jingling of sleigh-bells was heard, and directly after the door of the bedchamber opened, and a bundle of wraps, from out which a pair of china-blue eyes peeped, came in. The bundle rolled up to the fire, holding out a pair of mittened hands, and exclaiming, ...