Miss Ingalis (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 Excerpt: ...and luminous, she yielded herself with a happy abandonment to the arm which, as the music kept on and on for their sakes and her strength began to fail, carried her almost bodily over the floor. When they stopped with the last chord, there was a patter of hand-clapping; Theresa led it. "Clare, do tell me, if you can, who that lady is over there?" Grace asked, while they were resting where the June breeze could puff in on them through the parted curtains. "Don't turn for a minute; she is looking in our direction. I have found her looking at me several times, as if she were someone I ought to recognize; yet I can't remember ever seeing her before. I mean the very beautiful one, with gold hair and a black dress, a crimson rose at the edge of her corsage.' Clare turned with the right circumspection and air of carelessness. After a second, turning again, he asked in a tone of disdainful disparagement: "Do you call that beautiful?" Grace's eyes widened. ' Don't you?' she asked. Then she perceived that she had fallen into a trap: this was one of Clare's jokes, a way of being complimentary to her by pretending not to admire any other woman, by not condescending to consider any style of beauty but her own. But when Clare went on, it really sounded as if he were serious. ' Can't you see? She's painted. And she's laced. And I'd be willing to bet money God never made her hair that same splendacious gold color." "Oh, Clare " said Grace, unable to repress her surprise, "do you honestly think that? To me it looks so exactly right and natural ' "I love your innocence, my love Come, you ought to make her acquaintance. She's one of the family. Mrs. Fenn, divorcee, Harvey and Gertie's sister, the Stokeses' eldest daughter.&qu...