An empty fork is raised to the lips: there
it receives a neatly-cut piece of mutton, and swiftly conveys it to the
plate, where it instantly attaches itself to the mutton already there.
Soon one of the plates, furnished with a complete slice of mutton and
two potatoes, was handed up to the presiding gentleman, who quietly
replaced the slice on the joint, and the potatoes in the dish.
Their conversation was, if possible, more bewildering than their mode
of dining. It began by the youngest girl suddenly, and without
provocation, addressing her eldest sister.
"Oh, you wicked story-teller!" she said.
I expected a sharp reply from the sister; but, instead of this, she
turned laughingly to her father, and said, in a very loud stage-whisper,
"To be a bride!"
The father, in order to do his part in a conversation that seemed only
fit for lunatics, replied "Whisper it to me, dear."
But she didn't whisper (these children never did anything they were told):
she said, quite loud, "Of course not! Everybody knows what Dotty wants!"
And little Dolly shrugged her shoulders, and said, with a pretty
pettishness, "Now, Father, you're not to tease!
You know I don't want to be bride's-maid to anybody!"
"And Dolly's to be the fourth," was her father's idiotic reply.
Here Number Three put in her oar. "Oh, it is settled, Mother dear,
really and truly! Mary told us all about it. It's to be next Tuesday
four weeks--and three of her cousins are coming; to be bride's-maids--
and--"
"She doesn't forget it, Minnie!" the Mother laughingly replied.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220