Mrs. Morris was a lady of good family, but decayed fortune, of sober
years and exemplary piety. In closing her terms with Mr. Willcoxen, her
one great stipulation had been that she should bring her daughter, whom
she declared to be too "young and giddy" to be trusted out of her own
sight, even to a good boarding school.
Mr. Willcoxen expressed himself rather pleased than otherwise at the
prospect of Miriam's having a companion, and so the engagement was
closed.
Alice Morris was a hearty, cordial, blooming hoyden, really about ten or
eleven years of age, but seeming from her fine growth and proportions,
at least thirteen or fourteen.
Paul Douglass was a fine, handsome, well-grown boy of fourteen, with an
open, manly forehead, shaded with clustering, yellow curls, as soft and
silky as a girl's, and a full, beaming, merry blue eye, whose flashing
glances were the most mirth-provoking to all upon whom they chanced to
light. Paul was, and ever since his first arrival in the house had been,
"the life of the family." His merry laugh and shout were the pleasantest
sounds in all the precincts of Dell-Delight. When Paul first heard that
there was to be an invasion of "women and girls" into Dell-Delight, he
declared he had rather there had been an irruption of the Goths and
Vandals at once--for if there were any folks he could not get along
with, they were "the gals.
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