Some one came flying down the path.
"Father," exclaimed Dolly, "come and have a cup of tea or a glass of beer. Stephen and his sister think they can't stay to supper. But may be they'll leave the little girl—you seem to have taken such a notion to her."
Hanny didn't want to be impolite and she really did like Mr. Beekman, but as for staying—her heart was up in her throat.
Dolly picked up Katschina and carried her in triumph. Two white paws lay over Dolly's shoulder.
There was a table with a shining copper tea-kettle, a pewter tankard of home-brewed ale, bread and butter, cold chicken and ham, a great dish of curd cheese, pound cake, soft and yellow, fruit cake, a heaping dish of doughnuts and various cookies and seed cakes. Scipio, a young colored lad, passed the eatables. Young Mrs. Beekman poured the tea. The mother sat near her. She was short and fat and wore her hair in a high Pompadour roll, and she laughed a good deal, showing her fine white teeth of which she was very proud.
Katschina sat in her master's lap, and the little girl was beside him. The boys were given their hands full and sent away. It was a very pretty picture and the little girl felt as if she was reading an entertaining story. One of the Gessler cousins had been knitting lace, double oak-leaf with a heading of insertion. It looked marvellous to the little girl. She said she was making it to trim a visite. This was a Frenchy sort of garment lately come into vogue, though the little girl did not know what it was, and was too well trained to ask questions. But the lace might be the desire of one's heart.
They sipped their tea or raspberry shrub, or enjoyed a glass of ale. They were all very merry. The little girl wondered how Dolly dared to be so saucy with Stephen when she only knew him such a little. Mrs. Beekman could hardly accept the fact that they would not stay to supper, and said they must come soon and spend the day, and have Stephen drive up for them, and that she hoped soon to see Mrs. Underhill. "It is quite delightful and we are all well satisfied," she added, nodding rather mysteriously.
Dolly put on the little girl's hat and kissed her, giving her a breathless squeeze. Miss Gitty kissed her as well and told her she was a "very pretty behaved child." The buggy came round and Stephen put them in amid a chorus of good-bys.
"The little one looks delicate," commented the younger Mrs. Beekman when they had driven away. "I'm afraid she doesn't run and play enough. But she's beautifully behaved. And what a fancy father took to her!"
"Miss Underhill doesn't seem like a real country girl," said another.