“Certainly not,” answered Cousin Sarah Cray; “she is far too dignified.” Then, with a desire to be strictly truthful, she added, “Perhaps when she was a baby?”
But even this seemed doubtful.
Not long after this the Misses Wingfield (it was really Miss Polly) gave a party.
“Must we go?” said Eve.
“Why, it will be perfectly delightful!” answered Cousin Sarah Cray, looking at her in astonishment. “Every one will be there. Let me see: there will be ourselves, four; and Miss Polly and Miss Leontine, six; then the Debbses, thirteen—fourteen if Mrs. Debbs comes; the Rev. Mr. Bushey and his wife, sixteen. And perhaps there will be some one else,” she added, hopefully; “perhaps somebody has some one staying with them.”
“Thomas Scotts, the tub man, will not be invited,” remarked Cicely. “He will walk by on the outside. And look in.”
“There’s nothing I admire more than the way you pronounce that name Debbs,” observed Eve. “It’s plain Debbs; yet you call it Dessss—holding on to all the s’s, and hardly sounding the b at all—so that you almost make it rhyme with noblesse.”
“That’s because we like ’em, I reckon,” responded Cousin Sarah Cray. “They certainly are the sweetest family!”
“There’s a faint trace of an original theme in Matilda. The others are all variations,” said the caustic Miss Bruce.
They went to the party.