The doctor made no reply, but sat down to his supper quite as if nothing had happened. After the meal he took his pipe and usual seat on the piazza, but was hardly seated before Patty appeared, half-choked with laughter.
"Oh, dear, father!" she said, "that foolish thing is in the tub still, and says she won't get out till you tell her to!"
"Let her stay there then. She will dry quicker than my boots."
"Soapsuds makes green things grow," put in Will; "and Bathalina is as green as if she had been browsing with Nebuchadnezzar."
"Do come, father," Patty said, taking his arm. "She'll spend the night there if you don't."
Thus urged, Dr. Sanford rose; and the party adjourned to the kitchen, where the maid-servant still squatted amid the half-washed clothing like a very bony mermaid, singing in a defiantly mournful manner:
"'Broad is the road that leads to death.'"
"Get out of that tub, Bathalina," Dr. Sanford commanded, "and stop that noise."
"I'm going home to my Aunt Jeff's," the mermaid said.