Describe Miss Willises' house?
Answers
Explanation:
The Old Willis Place: A Ghost Story is a children's novel written by Mary Downing Hahn. It was first published in 2004 and is found in 9001 libraries.
Diana and her younger brother Georgie live in the woods near Oak Hill Manor, known locally as the Old Willis Place after its last inhabitant, a cruel old woman named Lilian Willis. Diana and Georgie have many rules they must follow, including never going beyond the property's boundaries, never speaking to anyone, and never allowing themselves to be seen. The county hires caretakers to live in a mobile home on the Willis property; however, Diana and Georgie always manage to drive them away with their childish pranks.
Diana is excited to see that the latest caretaker has a daughter named Lissa, a lonely, imaginative girl whose mother died when she was five. Diana imagines becoming friends with Lissa, even though the rules forbid it. Soon after her arrival, Lissa goes exploring and is the verge of entering the house when Diana steps out of the woods to stop her. Diana is so filthy and ragged that Lissa mistakes her for a monster and flees.
Answer:
The row of houses in which the old lady and her troublesome neighbour reside, comprises, beyond all doubt, a greater number of characters within its circumscribed limits, than all the rest of the parish put together. As we cannot, consistently with our present plan, however, extend the number of our parochial sketches beyond six, it will be better perhaps, to select the most peculiar, and to introduce them at once without further preface.
The four Miss Willises, then, settled in our parish thirteen years ago. It is a melancholy reflection that the old adage, ‘time and tide wait for no man,’ applies with equal force to the fairer portion of the creation; and willingly would we conceal the fact, that even thirteen years ago the Miss Willises were far from juvenile. Our duty as faithful parochial chroniclers, however, is paramount to every other consideration, and we are bound to state, that thirteen years since, the authorities in matrimonial cases, considered the youngest Miss Willis in a very precarious state, while the eldest sister was positively given over, as being far beyond all human hope. Well, the Miss Willises took a lease of the house; it was fresh painted and papered from top to bottom: the paint inside was all wainscoted, the marble all cleaned, the old grates taken down, and register-stoves, you could see to dress by, put up; four trees were planted in the back garden, several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front one, vans of elegant furniture arrived, spring blinds were fitted to the windows, carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations, alterations, and repairs, made confidential statements to the different maid-servants in the row, relative to the magnificent scale on which the Miss Willises were commencing; the maid-servants told their ‘Missises,’ the Missises told their friends, and vague rumours were circulated throughout the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon-place, had been taken by four maiden ladies of immense property.
At last, the Miss Willises moved in; and then the ‘calling’ began. The house was the perfection of neatness–so were the four Miss Willises. Everything was formal, stiff, and cold–so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place–not a single Miss Willis of the whole four was ever seen out of hers. There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the second to draw, the two others to play duets on the piano. They seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the addition, like a school-dinner, of another long grace afterwards–the three fates with another sister–the Siamese twins multiplied by two. The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious–the four Miss Willises grew bilious immediately. The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious–the four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever the eldest did, the others did, and whatever anybody else did, they all disapproved of; and thus they vegetated- -living in Polar harmony among themselves, and, as they sometimes went out, or saw company ‘in a quiet-way’ at home, occasionally icing the neighbours.