We are obliged to keep the window closed, lest we should overhear the conversation.

That is tiresome enough in warm weather.

You see the other windows are shaded by the fig-trees, so here we sit, in Egyptian darkness, mamma and I, during most of the pleasant afternoons.

And if anything ever came of it, we would n't mind, but nothing ever does.

There have been so many young men,--I could n't begin to count them, but they have worn out the seats of four chairs,--and why does n't one of them take her away?
Then we could have a nice, plain young lady who would sit quietly on the front steps with the old people, and who would n't want me to carry messages for her three times a day." At the present moment, however, Miss Anita Ferguson, clad in a black habit, with a white rose in her buttonhole, and a neat black derby with a scarf of white _crepe de chine_ wound about it, had gone on the mesa for a horseback ride, so Polly and Margery had borrowed the cosy corner for a chat.
Margery was crocheting a baby's afghan, and Polly was almost obscured by a rumpled, yellow dress which lay in her lap.
"You observe my favorite yellow gown ?" she asked.
"Yes, what have you done to it ?" "Gin Sing picked blackberries in the colander.