`` This has been a splendid examination , '' said Maggie , drawing a long breath . `` Real Christmassy , you know . We never had such a good time before . '' `` Well , it has paid , do n't you think ? '' asked Frank , as we drove home . `` Rather , '' I answered . It did `` pay '' in other ways than the mere pleasure of it . There was always a better feeling between the Roaders and the Hillites thereafter . The big brothers of the little girls , to whom our Christmas surprise had been such a treat , thought it worthwhile to bury the hatchet , and quarrels between the two villages became things of the past . The Dissipation of Miss Ponsonby We had n't been very long in Glenboro before we managed to get acquainted with Miss Ponsonby . It did not come about in the ordinary course of receiving and returning calls , for Miss Ponsonby never called on anybody ; neither did we meet her at any of the Glenboro social functions , for Miss Ponsonby never went anywhere except to church , and very seldom there . Her father would n't let her . No , it simply happened because her window was right across the alleyway from ours . The Ponsonby house was next to us , on the right , and between us were only a fence , a hedge of box , and a sprawly acacia tree that shaded Miss Ponsonby 's window , where she always sat sewing -- patchwork , as I 'm alive -- when she was n't working around the house . Patchwork seemed to be Miss Ponsonby 's sole and only dissipation of any kind . We guessed her age to be forty-five at least , but we found out afterward that we were mistaken . She was only thirty-five . She was tall and thin and pale , one of those drab-tinted persons who look as if they had never felt a rosy emotion in their lives . She had any amount of silky , fawn-coloured hair , always combed straight back from her face , and pinned in a big , tight bun just above her neck -- the last style in the world for any woman with Miss Ponsonby 's nose to adopt . But then I doubt if Miss Ponsonby had any idea what her nose was really like .
I do n't believe she ever looked at herself critically in a mirror XXXXX her life .
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