“Not one in the world,” said Catty, solemnly; “I pledge you my word and faith I never heard a syllable about it.”
“About it! about what?”
“About what's in the letter there,” said Catty, stoutly.
“You are therefore quite certain that you know it,” said Mary, smiling, “so now let's have your interpretation.”
“It 's a proposial,” said Catty, with a slight wink.
“A what!”
“A proposial—of marriage, I mean.”
But before the words were out, Mary burst into a fit of laughter, so hearty and with such good-will that poor Catty felt perfectly ashamed of herself.
“My dear Catty,” said she, at length, “you must have been reading fairy tales this morning; nothing short of such bright literature could have filled your mind with these imaginings. The object of the note is, I assure you, of a quite different kind;” and here she ran her eye once more over the epistle. “Yes,” continued she, “it is written in my dear aunt's own peculiar style, and begins with a 'declaratory clause,' as I think Mr. Scanlan would call it, expressive of my lamentably neglected education, and then proceeds to the appropriate remedy, by telling me that I am to have a governess!”
“A what!” cried Catty, in angry amazement.