Doctor McCall was at the gate, propping up an old Bourbon rose, an
especial favorite of her father's. Somebody tapped at her door, and
Miss Muller rustled in in a flounced white muslin and rose-colored
ribbons. She too hurried to the window and looked down.
"I asked him to meet me here, Kitty. I can't make you understand,
probably, but the Water-cure House is so bald and bare! There is
something in the shade here, and the old books, and this wilderness
of roses, that forms a fitting background for a friendship like ours,
aesthetically considered."
"I'm very glad. It's lucky I told Jane to have waffles--"
"I'll go down," interrupted Miss Muller, "and direct her about the
table. Coarse tablecloths and oily butter would jar against the finest
emotions. What very pretty shoulders you have, child! Such women as
you, like potatoes, are best _au naturel_. Now, with those corsets,
and this red shawl over the back of your chair, you would make a very
good Madonna of the Rubens school. Men's ideal of womanhood then was
to be plump, insipid and a mother."
"But about the oily butter?" said Kitty, glancing back over the
aforesaid shoulders as she stooped to lace her shoes, while Maria
hurried off to the kitchen.
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