At that moment Ladybird came flying in. Her cheeks were red, her eyes big and bright, and she seemed in a state of wild excitement. She flung her hat one way and her cape the other, and dropped into a chair.
“My, aunties,” she exclaimed, “what do you think! Stella Russell thinks maybe—perhaps—she’s going to be engaged to be married!”
“Goodness gracious me, child!” exclaimed Miss Priscilla, “what are you talking about?”
“I told you so,” said Miss Dorinda.
“And she doesn’t want to a bit,” Ladybird went on; “it’s perfectly awful. They’re making her do it—her cruel, cruel grandparents and that silly Charley Hayes; and there isn’t anybody else. And she wouldn’t have confidanted to me only I guessed it, and she said yes; and then I made her tell me all about it. And isn’t it perfectly awful, and can’t we help her some way?”
“Lavinia Lovell,” said Miss Priscilla, “do you know what you’re talking about? And if so, can you tell it so any one can understand it?”
“That’s the way it is, aunty; and if you can’t understand it, I can’t help it. Charley Hayes wants to marry Stella, and he says she must; and Stella’s grandfather and grandmother they say she must; so everybody wants her to, except Stella herself and me. I think it’s just dreadful. He’s as silly as a loon. He doesn’t know anything, and he’s awkward and rude and countrified and awful homely, and I don’t care if he is rich.”
“Lavinia,” said Miss Priscilla, with a tone of displeasure, “you have no business with these matters at all, and I am surprised that Stella should have talked to you about this.”
“She didn’t mean to, aunty,” said Ladybird, eagerly; “honest injun, it wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t going to say a word to me about it; but I couldn’t help seeing there was some fearful thing going on in her heart, and so I made her tell me what it was; and of course after I got her started she kept going, and now I know all about it.”
“You do!” said Miss Priscilla. “And, pray, what do you propose to do about it?”