"Mamma," snapped the creature, "I won't stand this; I won't stay in the same room with that hateful old maid. I hope she will go to Washington and be smashed up in ten thousand railroads. That's the idea!"
With this the spiteful thing walked out of the room with her head thrown back, and her nose in the air.
"Let her go," says E. E., sinking back on her couch as red as fire. "The child has got her share of the old Frost temper. Now let us talk about Washington. Do you mean to go incog.?"
"Incog! Oh, no," says I, beginning to cool down. "We mean to go in the railroad cars."
Another glow of fun came into Cousin E. E.'s eyes—she really is a good-natured creature; some people might have got mad about what I said to that child, but she didn't seem to care, for the laugh all came back to her eyes.
"Of course," says she, "but do you mean to go in your own character?"
"Why," says I, "don't people take their characters with them when they go to Washington?"
"They sometimes leave them there," says she, laughing, "but this is what I mean; if I were you I'd take this trip quietly, and look about a little without letting people know how great a genius they had among them. By and by we will all go and take the city by storm."
"Just so," says I, delighted with the plan, which has a touch of diplomacy in it—and I am anxious to study diplomacy under the circumstances, you know; "creep before you walk—that is what you mean."
"Just pass as Miss Frost—nothing more—and make your own observations," says E. E.