Now they
carried Emil off to show him the club room they had just fitted up
over the post-office, down in the village. They ran down the hill
in a drove, all laughing and chattering at once, some in French,
some in English.
Alexandra went into the cool, whitewashed basement where the women
were setting the tables. Marie was standing on a chair, building
a little tent of shawls where she was to tell fortunes. She sprang
down and ran toward Alexandra, stopping short and looking at her
in disappointment. Alexandra nodded to her encouragingly.
"Oh, he will be here, Marie. The boys have taken him off to show
him something. You won't know him. He is a man now, sure enough.
I have no boy left. He smokes terrible-smelling Mexican cigarettes
and talks Spanish. How pretty you look, child. Where did you get
those beautiful earrings?"
"They belonged to father's mother. He always promised them to me.
He sent them with the dress and said I could keep them."
Marie wore a short red skirt of stoutly woven cloth, a white bodice
and kirtle, a yellow silk turban wound low over her brown curls,
and long coral pendants in her ears.
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