'
'If you wish to hear anything of Mrs. Staunton and her daughters,'
said Elizabeth, 'you have only to ask Helen; you will open the flood-
gates of a stream, which has overwhelmed us all, ever since she came
home.'
'Then I hope Helen likes them as well as they seem to like her,' said
Anne; 'Mrs. Staunton spoke very highly of her in her letter to
Mamma.'
'Oh yes,' said Elizabeth, 'they seem to have done nothing but sit
with their mouths open, admiring her; and she really is very much
improved, positively grown a reflective creature, and the most
graceful as well as the prettiest of the family. She would be almost
a beau ideal of a sister, if she had but a few more home feelings,
or, as you say, if she did not like the Stauntons quite so much. I
wonder what you will think of her. Now are you ready? Let us come
down.'
When the two cousins came into the drawing-room, they found the rest
of the ladies already there. Katherine and Helen Woodbourne were
busy arranging a quantity of beautiful flowers, which had been
brought from Merton Hall, to decorate the Vicarage on this occasion.
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