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TrustDice login Online Casino: When Quality and Reputation Are Top Priorities! CHAPTER VI.—AN EVENING IN THE WOPP PARLOR.,“Well, now, is that so? It sounds to me like a furrin word,” returned Mrs. Wopp, who admired Mrs. Mifsud’s polished utterances, while by no means undervaluing her own rhetorical gifts.,“That’s for Billy’s cats; mine need none,” Edith declared.,She emerged from the house her hair coiled on the top of her head and decorated with a strip of shining silver from an empty biscuit tin. Thus had she seen a circus lady dressed on one never-to-be-forgotten day. Around her small body was draped a yellow silk shawl of Mrs. Wopps. Her feet were encased in a pair of Ebenezer Wopp’s reddest socks, bound on by bright green ribbon ripped from her winter hat. From her fair hair floated a white aigret made of chicken feathers hastily wired together. Moses needed no aigret as a strand of red hair stood upright from the crown of his head.,“Jimmy, can you stand?”，“Won’t you dive Elmo some wed ones, too?” he pleaded.，The heat and smoke increased alarmingly as they went on, the man puffing at the boy’s pace. In and out, occasionally doubling and returning but never losing altitude, Billy crashed on. His slender body slipped through underbrush by way of small apertures that would not admit the man’s greater bulk; he had to break his way. The boy, also accustomed to running, climbing, had the advantage of better breath; though the other could not, Billy still held his mouth shut against the suffocating smoke, kept his smarting eyes partly closed.，“Betty’s not goin’ to no kingdom come yet,” assured Mrs. Wopp, her optimism rising like a star of the first magnitude to lighten the darkness of her son’s midnight sky.“You romp!” came the disgusted voice once more. “You’d better cut your hair, and your skirts, and be a child again.”

The sunbeam somehow got into the internal decorations of Nancy and filtered out through her eyes. Their amber depths seemed to have turned into liquid gold.,“I’d love to, Billy,” Mrs. Lancaster whispered; “I’ve never liked being grown up.”,“Here come the Wopps,” said Nell to her companion as the family entered, led as usual by Mrs. Wopp. Mr. Wopp came next especially scoured for the occasion, freshly shaved and with long side hair carefully oiled and combed over the bald spot on his crown. He carried a few long strips of paper in his hand. Beside him walked Betty inwardly disapproving of the two stiff braids with which her head was adorned. Bringing up the rear was Moses, his face shining with soap and satisfaction and wearing a new brown suit at least two sizes too large for him. He was bent on a good time which in his case meant sitting on a side bench with a few other youths and jeering at the mistakes of the dancers. Close at his heels came Jethro who had pleaded so hard to be brought along and had gazed at them with such tragic appeal in his eyes that they could not disappoint him. He was now stationed under a bench, having first been intimidated with dire threats as to what would happen to him should he come out and trip up the dancers.,As Moses clattered down stairs, Mrs. Wopp continued, “There is shore a thunderstorm comin’ up to-night. ’Pears to me I heerd like a roll of drums.”,“Do you remember when we went to Niagary Falls on our weddin’ tower, Ebenezer? We seen this here whirlpool an’ Goat Island an’ the hull show. Them was the happy days.”,“It was quite all right,” answered Nell, anxiously watching for the reappearance of Mr. Wopp’s knife, “Mr. Eliot gave me a glorious drive over the prairie behind his team of greys, but,” with a sly look towards the young rancher, “I don’t believe he likes to meet trains.”,Billy thought he detected a touch of resigned disappointment in her words, and looked up with a sudden wonder widening his eyes, making them shine even in the dim light of the shaded lamp. “Do you want me to preach, mamma?”,“Say, fellows, business now, and no questions asked. There’s a hitch on the stage. Storm, wrap that cloak round you—don’t wait for fixings—and get to your place in the wings, quick! When I say ‘Go,’ take Rain’s hand, crouch low, run to the centre, and between you yank that snow tank off the stage. Sabe?”,“That’s Flash; he always works for his breakfast,” Billy pompously approved.,“You carnt spell so smart anyways,” he ventured. Betty turned her piquant nose up at him and suddenly bounced up from the table.,“Miss Gordon here, made me a harnsome lace yoke fer an underwaist, an’ give it to me fer my birthday,” volunteered Mrs. Wopp.,“Won’t you dive Elmo some wed ones, too?” he pleaded..