There were gilded mirrors all over the house and
chilly marble-topped tables, gilt plaster Cupids in the corners, and
stuccoed lions "in the way" everywhere. The tactful hands of Mrs. Price
had screened some of these with seasonable laurels, fir boughs, and
berries, and had imparted a slight Christmas flavor to the house. But
the greater part of her time had been employed in trying to subdue the
eccentricities of Spindler's amazing relations; in tranquilizing Mrs.
"Aunt" Martha Spindler,--the elderly cook before alluded to,--who was
inclined to regard the gilded splendors of the house as indicative
of dangerous immorality; in restraining "Cousin" Morley Hewlett
from considering the dining-room buffet as a bar for "intermittent
refreshment;" and in keeping the weak-minded nephew, Phinney Spindler,
from shooting at bottles from the veranda, wearing his uncle's clothes,
or running up an account in his uncle's name for various articles at
the general stores. Yet the unlooked-for arrival of the two children had
been the one great compensation and diversion for her.
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