Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery

was taken up to the Great-great’s room for a few minutes. She went reluctantly. Great-great-aunt Hannah was so mysteriously old…a tiny, shrunken, wrinkled creature peering at her out of a mound of quilts in a huge, curtained bed.
    â€œSo this is Mary’s little girl,” said a piping voice.
    â€œNo. I am Patricia Gardiner,” said Pat, who hated to be called anybody’s little girl, even mother’s.
    Great-great-aunt Hannah put a claw-like hand on Pat’s arm and drew her close to the bed, peering at her with old, old blue eyes, so old that sight had come back to them.
    â€œNae beauty…nae beauty,” she muttered.
    â€œShe may grow up better-looking that you expect,” said Aunt Frances, as one determinedly looking on the bright side. “She is terribly sunburned now.”
    Pat’s little brown face, with its fine satiny skin, flushed mutinously. She did not care if she were “no beauty” but she disliked being criticized to her face like this. Judy would have said it wasn’t manners. And then when they went downstairs Aunt Honor said in a tone of horror,
    â€œThere’s a rip in your dress, child.”
    Pat wished they wouldn’t call her “child.” She would have loved to stick her tongue out at Aunt Honor but that wouldn’t be manners either. She stood very stiff while Aunt Honor brought needle and thread and sewed it up.
    â€œOf course Mary can’t attend to everything and Judy Plum wouldn’t care if they were all in rags,” said Aunt Frances condoningly.
    â€œJudy would care,” cried Pat. “She’s very particular about our clothes and our manners. That shoulder ripped on the way over. So there.”
    In spite of this rather unpropitious beginning the day was not so bad. Pat said her verses correctly and Aunt Honor gave her a cookie…and watched her eat it. Pat was in agonies of thirst but was too shy to ask for a glass of water. When dinner time came, however, there was plenty of milk…Judy would have said “skim” milk. But it was served in a lovely old gold-green glass pitcher that made the skimmiest of milk look like Jersey cream. The table was something of the leanest, according to Silver Bush standards. Pat’s portion of the viands was none too lavish, but she ate it off a plate with a colored border of autumn leaves…one of the famous Selby plates, a hundred years old. Pat felt honored and tried not to feel hungry. For dessert she had three of the tabooed red plums.
    After dinner Aunt Frances said she had a headache and was going to lie down. Cousin Dan suggested aspirin but Aunt Frances crushed him with a look.
    â€œIt is not God’s will that we should take aspirin for relief from the pain He sends,” she said loftily, and stalked off, with her red glass, silver-stoppered vinaigrette held to her nose.
    Aunt Honor turned Pat loose in the parlor and told her to amuse herself. This Pat proceeded to do. Everything was of interest and now she was alone she could have a good time. She had been wondering how she could live through the afternoon if she had to sit it out with the aunts. Both she and Aunt Honor were mutually relieved to be rid of each other.
    â€¢ • •
    The parlor furniture was grand and splendid. There was a big, polished brass door-handle in which she saw herself reflected with such a funny face. The china door-plate had roses painted on it. The blinds were pulled down and she loved the cool, green light which filled the room…it made her feel like a mermaid in a shimmering sea-pool. She loved the little procession of six white ivory elephants marching along the black mantel. She loved the big spotted shells on the what-not which murmured of the sea when she held them to her ear. And there was the famous vase, full of peacock feathers, that had made a face at Sarah Jenkins. It was of white glass and had curious markings on its side that did