Just then a lovely young girl walked from the piano and took a low chair in front of the fireplace.
Before her there were grouped ever so many children, twenty-five or thirty, perhaps.

The tots in the front rows were cosy and comfortable on piles of cushions, and the seven or eight year olds in the back row were in seats a little higher.

Each child had a sprig of lilac in its hand.

The young girl wore a soft white dress with lavender flowers scattered all over it, and a great bunch of the flowers in her belt.
She was a lovely creature! At least, I believe she was.

I have an indistinct remembrance that her enemies (if she has any) might call her hair red; but I could n't stop looking at her long enough at the time to decide precisely what color it was.