"Nonie, you're to lend grace to the entertainment," went on Nannie, with twinkling eyes.
"Who, me? I?" exclaimed Nora, quickly. "Oh!" Then, recovering herself the next minute, she said coolly, "Well, I'm perfectly willing to go; for that matter" (with that superior air that does so provoke us), "some of us ought to have gone long ago, and called on the Ervengs,—Miss Marston says so, too,—to apologise for and explain the, to say the least very peculiar, conduct of some other members of our family." And here she looked at me,—just as if Phil were not more to blame than I in that horrid affair of the Fetich!
I made a face, and Phil said: "Oh, come, now, Nora, we've heard that before; so do spare us the rest. Who else is to be a victim, Nancy?"
"Betty fills up the sum of the 'some,'" answered Nannie; "papa thinks she certainly ought—"
"I won't go, I won't, I will not," I interrupted. "That boy is too conceited for anything, and I'm not going over there to be criticised,—so now! I don't want any of their old tea, and I'd just like to be ill or to hide away or something, so's not to go."
"Let's you and I run away," suggested Phil, in a stage whisper behind his hand; then, striking an attitude, he extended his long arms: "Come, fair damsel, come, we'll fly to other climes,—the attic or the cellar, anywhere, so it be not to the Ervengs'." He made a sudden snatch at me, but I was prepared,—I know him of old!—and, dodging under his arm, darted round the table and soon put a wide distance between us.
"Then nobody's going," asserted Jack; he sat on the edge of the schoolroom table, grinning and hugging his knees, which were drawn up to his chin.
"Not a one!" "No, sir!" "No, indeed!" answered Phil, Felix, and I, in one breath.
"I do think you are all the rudest, most unmannerly creatures!" exclaimed Nora, indignantly. "These people have been polite enough to invite us to their house, have taken the trouble to prepare for us, when really the attention should have come from us to them, and here you all act as if they had insulted us. Positively, you are a most uncouth set. I am very much pleased with Mrs. Erveng's invitation, and I am going, if no one else does. Rude things!"
She started for the door; but Phil got before her, and salaamed to the floor. "What would we do without you, O most noble and elegant Eleanora!" he cried, as he bobbed up and down; and limping over, Fee stared at her through and under and over his glasses. "Friends," he exclaimed, turning to us and putting on an expression of intense astonishment, "allow me to call your attention to this remarkably healthy variety of a well-known plant, Miss"—with a wave of his hand toward Nora—"Miss Prim Rose."