human
Dr. Helen telephoned me that you were coming,
gpt
Will you take the place of honor?
human
It must be what the _Courier_ advertisement meant, when it spoke of furniture, 'warranted upholstered,'
gpt
So you read the _Courier_, too! Mr. Tracy bought back numbers of it to amuse me, and I've collected the most delightful clippings. You see, I'm alone so much. The nurse wasn't very entertaining, and my husband has to be away all the week, and I have to have some one to laugh with, or at least, something to laugh at!
human
What fun! said Hannah.
gpt
Do show me your clippings.
human
I was just pasting in a birth notice when you came, said Mrs. Tracy, lifting a small scrap-book from a table.
gpt
It's about as good as anything. 'Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Kling are the proud parents of a fine baby girl. Present indications are that the lovely lump intends to stay.'
human
O!
gpt
That's why I cut them out and paste them. No one would believe them, otherwise. Here is a gem of music criticism: 'As he stepped to the edge of the platform, the word Artist came to every lip. His natural pathos mingled with his baritone in such a manner that it was impossible to tell where one left off and the other began. And in his dramatic numbers, the writhings of his face showed the convulsive agonies of a soul in pain.'
human
One of my friends told me about a singer coming to a little village, and they described her appearance and her dress, and wound up the paragraph by saying: 'The soloist wore white shoes. No other stage decorations were necessary.'
gpt
Delightful--unless it was deliberate wit! As it was in a Kansas paper, which spoke of some one's 'blowing large chunks of melody out of a flute.' But the charm of these Winsted gems is the entire unconsciousness of the writer. For instance, here: 'The élite lingerie of Winsted invited their gentleman friends to a leap-year ball!'
human
O, see here! cried Hannah, turning the pages joyfully.
gpt
Only a misprint, and I saw in a Chicago paper the other day that one of the fashionable ladies wore a gown with a gold-colored y-o-l-k. This is partly a misprint, too, 'easy _hairs_ were scattered about with a lavish hand.' But I think it would take a hand that was powerful as well as lavish, to scatter easy chairs very generally! That was the same party where the hostess and her daughters 'dispensed with the refreshments in the dining-room!' But I am not going to keep you laughing over the _Courier_ all the afternoon,
human
Just one more, she begged.
gpt
Listen! 'Mrs. Gray's speech was replete with wit, wisdom and winsome ways.' O dear, Mrs. Tracy! I never saw anything so funny as this book in all my life!
human
The trouble with it is that it gets one started on a certain line, and it is very hard to get away from it.
gpt
Like telling funny names you have heard, suggested Hannah.
human
Alice and Catherine and Frieda and I got to telling those last night, and we laughed so long and so hard that Dr. Helen came up and put us to bed!
gpt
Did you have any funnier than Pearl Button?
human
Not really? protested Hannah.
gpt
Alice swore she knew one girl called Dusk Delight Dinwiddie, because she was born at twilight and they thought she was delightful. That was what we were laughing over when Dr. Helen came in, and she stopped long enough to tell us of a college acquaintance of hers named Revelation Rasmussen, who married Will Kelly, and an Ella G. Gray whom they nick-named 'Country Churchyard'!
human
What jolly times you girls must be having, said Mrs. Tracy.
gpt
You see, I know all about you. Dr. Helen--I began calling her Dr. Smith, but I couldn't keep it up--has told me all sorts of interesting stories, and those about you four are the most entertaining. I listen to all your doings as though you were characters in a serial story. You don't mind, I hope?
human
Mind? Of course not. We aren't story-book girls at all, though, but very flesh-and-bloody! Why didn't Dr. Helen tell us about you before, and let us come to see you?
gpt
It has only been a little while that I have felt like seeing people, and when she suggested sending her daughter, I told her not to, for I didn't want your fun interrupted. And I remember when I was your age, I dreaded calling on sick people. I always felt as though I ought to carry them tracts or--
human
Wine jelly, finished Hannah.
gpt
Yes, that's the way I felt a little, to-day. I was afraid I'd not be able to think of anything to say, and I planned to offer to read to you.
human
That was very good of you, but I've read and been read to so much that I'm glad of other occupations. The nurse exhausted the library's resources. Then I took up picture puzzles. Mr. Tracy brings them out to me every week, but we both get cross about them because they interest us so that we spend half his precious day over them! Just now I am trying to teach myself to knit, out of a book, and I'm in a dreadful tangle. I think the chamber-maid knows how, and I mean to ask her.
gpt
O, let me bring Frieda in to show you. She knows how to do all such things, and would dearly love to. And you ought to meet all your story characters and see if we are like what you imagined. I must go now, for Dr. Helen expressly said that I wasn't to stay long, and I know you are tired.
human
I'll soon be rested, and it has been such fun to have you. Wait! Let me give you one of my roses!