They were always both well dressed, in the
same kinds of hats and dresses, as is becoming in two german sisters.
The mother liked to have them dressed in red. Their best clothes were
red dresses, made of good heavy cloth, and strongly trimmed with braid
of a glistening black. They had stiff, red felt hats, trimmed with
black velvet ribbon, and a bird. The mother dressed matronly, in a
bonnet and in black, always sat between her two big daughters, firm,
directing, and repressed.
The only weak spot in this good german woman's conduct was the way she
spoiled her boy, who was not honest and who was very hard to manage.
The father of this family was a decent, quiet, heavy, and
uninterfering german man. He tried to cure the boy of his bad ways,
and make him honest, but the mother could not make herself let the
father manage, and so the boy was brought up very badly.
Mrs. Haydon's girls were now only just beginning as young ladies, and
so to get her niece, Lena, married, was just then the most important
thing that Mrs. Haydon had to do.
Mrs. Haydon had four years before gone to Germany to see her parents,
and had taken the girls with her. This visit had been for Mrs. Haydon
most successful, though her children had not liked it very well.
Mrs. Haydon was a good and generous woman, and she patronized her
parents grandly, and all the cousins who came from all about to see
her.
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