Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/201

IT was generally understood throughout the length and breadth of the land about this time that the Klingenders would have a brilliant ball, if they died for it; and as nothing succeeds like success, past, present, or to come, everyone made a point of being present on their Tuesday evening, in spite of all the difficulties and dangers of the bad roads and worse river-crossings that had to be surmounted. The two girls who chiefly represented the Klingender family in the eyes of the world (putting aside a harmless necessary father and mother, and two or three useful but uninteresting brothers) were very pretty, very small, very blonde little creatures, much resembling in colouring and fluffiness of hair, and in a habit of generally wearing some shade of yellow, a pair of pretty and animated prize canaries. They were so much alike in figure, complexion, and general featheriness, that it was a difficult task for a new acquain-