“What are you doing?” said I.
“Looking for you,” she says.
“Then why should not I be looking for you?” said I.
“Because you weren’t, Miss Caroline Courtenay!” and she makes a swimming courtesy. “Oh yes, you don’t need to tell me you have a secret, my young gentlewoman. I know as well as if I had seen it. O Pussy, have you come too? Do you know what it is, Pussy? Does she come up here to read her love-letters—does she? Oh, how charming! Wouldn’t I like to see them! How does she get them, Pussy? She has been rather fond of going to see Elspie this past week or two; is that it, Pussy? Won’t you tell me, my pretty, pretty cat?”
“Hatty, don’t be so absurd!” cried I.
“We know, don’t we, Pussy?” says Hatty in a provoking whisper to the cat in her arms. “I thought there would be somebody at Carlisle that she would be sorry to leave—didn’t you, Pussy-cat? What is he like, Pussy? Tall and dark, I’ll wager, with a pair of handsome mustachios, and the most beautiful black eyes you ever saw! Won’t that be about it, Pussy?”
I could have thrown the cat at her. How could any mortal creature be sweet, or keep quiet, talked to in that way? I flew out.
“Hatty, you are the most vexatious tease that ever lived! Do, for pity’s sake, go down and let me alone. You know perfectly well it is all stuff and nonsense!”
“Oh, how angry she is, my pretty pussy!” says Hatty, hiding her laughing face behind the cat. “It was all nonsense, you know; but really, when she gets into such a tantrum, I begin to think I must have hit the white. What do you say, Pussy?”
I stamped on the garret floor.