Betty Leicester by Sarah Orne Jewett — Read

AUNT BARBARA and Betty had finished their breakfast in the cool / breakfast-room, or little dining-room as it was sometimes called by the / family. This looked out on the short elm-shaded grass of the side yard, / but it was apt to get too warm later in the day. The dining-room was / much larger, and had most of the family portraits in it and a ponderous / sideboard and side tables, and Betty sometimes thought that a good deal / of machinery had to be set running there to give a quiet dinner or / supper just to Aunt Barbara and herself. But the little dining-room was / very cosy, with a small sideboard and a tall clock and an old / looking-glass and very old-fashioned slender wooden armchairs. The sun / came dancing in through the leaves at a square window. The / breakfast-room was nearer the kitchen, and Serena had a sociable custom / of appearing now and then to ask Miss Leicester about the housekeeping.

"There now, Miss Barb'ra," she exclaimed, putting her head in at the / door, while Betty and her aunt still lingered. "You excuse me this time, / but here's Jonathan considers it best to go off up-country looking for / winter's wood, of all things! I told him I'd like to ride up long of him / to see sister Sarah when he went, but I never expected he'd select the / very day I set two weeks ago for us to pick the currants."