“Do you like it?” she asked, all her disappointment and chagrin forgotten.
“Like it? Why, it’s the most tasty place I was ever in! It’s better than any play; it’s like bein’ in a play yourself! 213 Jest see them pillows supportin’ that gallery! ’N’ them picters of tropical fruits! ’N’ this ice-cream! Why, it’s different from what we hev at the Sunday-school picnics! ’Pears to me it’s more creamy!”
Now, at last, Miss Becky had lost all thought of the passage of time. She took her ice-cream, just a little at a time, off the tip-end of her spoon, and with every mouthful the look of content grew deeper. One of the little cakes that were served with the ice-cream was a macaroon with a sugar swan upon it—“a reel little statoo of a swan,” Miss Becky called it. She could not be persuaded to eat it, but she studied it with such undisguised admiration that Nannie ventured to suggest that she take it home with her. Again Miss Becky was enchanted. She wrapped it in her pocket-handkerchief, and placed it carefully in her reticule, whence it was to emerge only to enter upon a long and admired career as a parlour ornament.
“And now, Miss Becky,” Nannie queried, as they sat there embowered in palms 214 and ferns, listening to the plash of the fountain, “didn’t you enjoy the play at all?”
“Oh, yes,” said Miss Becky, “I had a very pleasant time before they got so reckless with their guns. But—I wonder whether they take sech pains with the the-etter’s they used to? Why, when I went with Uncle ’Bijah Lane that time, they all wore the most beautiful clothes. Even the men was dressed out in velvets and satins, and they wa’n’t anybody on the stage that didn’t make a good appearance.”
“But, you know, this was a different sort of play, Miss Becky. The folks in The Shaughraun weren’t kings and queens, but just every-day people.”
“Well, s’posin’ they was! I don’t see no excuse for that man Con goin’ round lookin’ so slack. I sh’d think he might at least git a whole coat to wear when he ’pears before the public!”
“I’m afraid you’re sorry you came,” said Nannie, very meekly, feeling quite ashamed of her poor little party.
“Oh, no, I ain’t! Why, child, I’d hev 215 come barefoot to see this place here, with the founting a-splashin’ and the fishes a-gleamin’! Barefoot, I tell ye!”
It was a forcible expression, yet Nannie was not quite reassured. She still demurred.