“Now, Betty, you will joke. Yes,”—she hid her face on Betty’s shoulder,—“I would, I really would.”
“I said you would be a New Englander yet. I shall have to hand you over to Aunt Martha to-morrow and let her teach you how to bake beans.”
“But there’s no need. You see, he’ll not ask for me.”
“Nonsense; wait till the war is over. What about Robert Clinton, Lettice?”
“What about him?”
“Yes; you don’t care one wee little bit for him?”
“No, no, no!”
“Does your—what is his name?—Ellicott know that?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t be likely to take him by the lapel of his coat and say, ‘Mr. Baldwin, I want you should know I don’t care for Robert Clinton.’” Lettice imitated Rhoda’s tones so exactly that Betty laughed.
“No, you couldn’t do that,” she agreed. “Now I have something to tell you. He, like an honorable gentleman, has told William that in a moment of excitement, when he thought you were in danger, he declared his love for you, and—”