Minty clapped her hands, and her round eyes shone. "To let it have a drink and run through the woods. Oh, what fun! I'll let it sleep with me."
Her mother gave her a sounding slap. "Hold your tongue, Minty Foster, and let the cap'n speak. Why did Thinkright ask me to get the best room ready, then? If a monkey comes into this house I go out of it, and I stay out."
"'Tain't a monkey, no, 'tain't," returned Cap'n Lem tearfully but pacifically; "but I made the best joke, Lucil, if I do say it. I'm laughin' yit. Ye couldn't 'preciate it till ye see her, then I'll tell ye, an if yew don't bust your sides"—
"Her? Is she young or old?" demanded Mrs. Lem, recovering a sense of the lustre on her brilliantine.
"Oh, pretty so-so," returned her father-in-law aggravatingly.
"Then they'll be up here in a few minutes," said Mrs. Lem, her black eyes snapping. "Get in out o' the wind, Minty, or you won't have no Boston left." She smoothed the limp roll into which Minty's front hair had been coaxed, and pushed her inside the open door, where the child lingered.
"You might tell who she is, grandpa," she called.
"Why, then,—come now, I will. It's mean to tease ye. It's Miss Lacey."
"Oh—!" A long-drawn sound of disappointment escaped from both his hearers. "Why couldn't Thinkright have said so!" exclaimed Mrs. Lem. "Miss Lacey'd jest as lieves have seen us in our every-day things."
"I don't care," said Minty, hopeful still. "Miss Lacey nearly always brings me somethin'."