Page 83 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

An Invasion of a Different Sort
Mother Stahlbaum was ecstatic. The night she had orchestrated for years was finally here and her Marie was a vision! And, as she looked into the mirror, she felt that she, too, was a vision. She told M. Lesue that very thing.
A vision of WHAT, M. Lesue had no idea. In her opinion, the style Mother Stahlbaum had chosen for herself was better suited to a girl half – no – a third her age. But M. Lesue had been hired to sew, and sew she did. Despite her personal thoughts, M. Lesue was no dummy and with a flurry of French verbs, she proclaimed Mother Stahlbaum a rival to her very pretty daughter, Marie, that sweet, sweet child. Surely a credit to the mama! And before she could choke on her words, M. Lesue fled from the boudoir and down the hall.
She gazed out the casements to the fields below, where eligible young bachelors, of all sorts and sizes, fell upon the house like invaders on a castle. With an uncharacteristic demonstration of pity, M. Lesue returned to the child’s room. (M. Lesue always thought of anyone less than forty
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