Esther looks anything but old--a trifle matronly, we admit--but old we
emphatically say she is not; her hair is parted plainly, and the tiniest of
all tiny caps sits at the back of her head, looking as if it felt it had no
business on such raven black hair, and ought to be ignominiously dragged
off without one word of apology. The face and form are much more round and
full, and the old placid expression has been undisturbed in the lapse of
years.
The complexion of the two children was a sort of compromise between the
complexions of their parents--chubby-faced, chestnut-coloured,
curly-headed, rollicking little pests, who would never be quiet, and whose
little black buttons of eyes were always peering into something, and whose
little plugs of fingers would, in spite of every precaution to prevent, be
diving into mother's work-box, and various other highly inconvenient and
inappropriate places.
"There!" said Esther, putting the last stitch into a doll she had been
manufacturing; "now, take sister, and go away and play." But little sister,
it appeared, did not wish to be taken, and she made the best of her way
off, holding on by the chairs, and tottering over the great gulfs between
them, until she succeeded in reaching the music-stand, where she paused for
a while before beginning to destroy the music.
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