I 'll tell Miss Lavendar you 're here , ma'am . She 's upstairs , ma'am . '' With this the small handmaiden whisked out of sight and the girls , left alone , looked about them with delighted eyes . The interior of this wonderful little house was quite as interesting as its exterior . The room had a low ceiling and two square , small-paned windows , curtained with muslin frills . All the furnishings were old-fashioned , but so well and daintily kept that the effect was delicious . But it must be candidly admitted that the most attractive feature , to two healthy girls who had just tramped four miles through autumn air , was a table , set out with pale blue china and laden with delicacies , while little golden-hued ferns scattered over the cloth gave it what Anne would have termed `` a festal air . '' `` Miss Lavendar must be expecting company to tea , '' she whispered . `` There are six places set . But what a funny little girl she has . She looked like a messenger from pixy land . I suppose she could have told us the road , but I was curious to see Miss Lavendar . S ... s ... sh , she 's coming . '' And with that Miss Lavendar Lewis was standing in the doorway . The girls were so surprised that they forgot good manners and simply stared . They had unconsciously been expecting to see the usual type of elderly spinster as known to their experience ... a rather angular personage , with prim gray hair and spectacles . Nothing more unlike Miss Lavendar could possibly be imagined . She was a little lady with snow-white hair beautifully wavy and thick , and carefully arranged in becoming puffs and coils . Beneath it was an almost girlish face , pink cheeked and sweet lipped , with big soft brown eyes and dimples ... actually dimples . She wore a very dainty gown of cream muslin with pale-hued roses on it ... a gown which would have seemed ridiculously juvenile on most women of her age , but which suited Miss Lavendar so perfectly that you never thought about it at all .
`` Charlotta the Fourth says XXXXX you wished to see me , '' she said , in a voice that matched her appearance .
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