In the house, also, Mrs. Priscilla Rambo was not severely haunted
by the spectre of any neglected duty. The simple regular
routine of the household could not be changed under her charge;
each thing had its appropriate order of performance, must be done,
and WAS done. If the season were backward, at the time
appointed for whitewashing or soap-making, so much the worse for
the season; if the unhatched goslings were slain by thunder, she
laid the blame on the thunder. And if--but no, it is quite
impossible to suppose that, outside of those two inevitable,
fearful house-cleaning weeks in each year, there could have been
any disorder in the cold prim, varnish-odored best rooms, sacred to
company.
It was Miss Betty Rambo, whose pulse beat some ten strokes faster
than its wont, as she sat down with the rest to their early country
dinner. Whether her brother Henry's participated in the
accelerated movement could not be guessed from his demeanor. She
glanced at him now and then, with bright eyes and flushed cheeks,
eager to speak yet shrinking from the half magisterial air which
was beginning to supplant his old familiar banter.
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