I began to wonder if she meant it.
“O Cary!” cried Cecilia the next morning, “do come here and tell me who this is.”
“Who what is?” said I, for I looked out of the window, and could see nobody but Ephraim Hebblethwaite.
“Oh, that handsome young man coming up the drive,” returned she.
“That?” I said. “Is he handsome? Why, ’tis but Ephraim Hebblethwaite.”
“Whom?” cried Cecilia, with one of her little shrieking laughs. “You never mean to say that fine young man has such a horrid name as Ephraim Hebblethwaite!”
Hatty had come to look over my shoulder.
“Well, I am afraid he has,” said I.
“Just that exactly, my dear,” returned Hatty, in her teasing way. “Poor creature! He is sweet on Fanny.”