“Lords?”
“Any jolly quantity of lords!”
“You really mean it, Missy?”
“Mean it? What do you mean? Look here, I won't tell you no more if you think I'm telling lies.”
“Missy, I never thought of such a thing—never!” Arabella hastened to aver. “I was only surprised, that's all I was.'.isn't likely I meant to doubt your word.”
“Didn't you? That's all right, then. Why, bless your heart, do you think it so wonderful to know a few lords?”
“I didn't think they were as common as all that,” said Arabella, meekly.
“Common as mud,” cried Missy grandly. “Why, you can't swing a cat without knocking a lord's topper off—not in England!”
Arabella laughed. Then her questions ceased for the time being, and Missy was curious to know how she had impressed a rather tiresome interlocutor, for now in the bedroom it was impossible for them to see each other's faces. A few minutes later Missy was satisfied on this point. At the supper-table she had no more attentive listener than Arabella, who watched her in the lamplight as one who has merely read watches another who has seen and done, while Missy rattled on more freely than she had done yet before Mrs. Teesdale. Even Mrs. Teesdale was made to smile this time, though she did her best to conceal it. The visitor was in such racy form.
“I may have to go back home again any day,” she told them all. “It'll depend how my mother is, and how they all get on without me. I'll bet they manage pretty badly. But while I am here I mean to make the most of my time. A short life and a merry one, them's my sentiments, ladies and gentlemen! So I want to learn to shoot and milk and do everything but ride. I could ride if I wanted to; I learnt when I was a kid; but a horse once——”