"If I were in her place," whispered Miss Pickerel to her brothers and sisters, "I should want the earth to open and swallow me up!"
The Pickerel Family and all the relations drew up in line and looked with severity at Big Brother Pickerel, who continued his protecting attitude toward Miss Catfish. At length Grandfather Pickerel spoke.
"Grandson," said he, "it is more in sorrow than in anger that we are gathered here. Speak. Do you insist on bringing that young person into this respectable family?"
"I do," answered Big Brother Pickerel, firmly; "and as for the respectability of the family, I don't—"
"That will do, sir!" thundered Grandfather Pickerel, in a terrible voice. "So be it. Miss Catfish, consider yourself raised to our level. Your apartment is under the seventeenth cobble-stone to the left of where the brook enters the pool. Spare your protestations of gratitude, I beg of you. Our feelings are too deep for words."
At this instant the proceedings were interrupted by a dazzling object that dropped into the water a short distance down the stream, and came glinting and whirling through the pool. Big Brother Pickerel made a dash for it, but Grandfather Pickerel hit him such a slap with the flat of his tail that he fell back, dazed, to the bottom of the pool.
"Idiot! Look up and see what you were jumping at."
When the others looked in the direction indicated by Grandfather Pickerel, they saw a most amusing thing. A dapper young man was actually trying to deceive them with some scarlet feathers and a silver bangle at the end of a line. Even Baby Pickerel knew better. Big Brother Pickerel looked very much ashamed. He tried to explain that his nervousness over domestic matters had temporarily warped his judgment.