“Not since Mrs. Cramcroud's last sociable, I think,” replied Miss Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale.
“Oho! so you don't want any introduction,” exclaimed Master Billy. I didn't know you knew each other, Lottie.”
“I have met Mr. Lovegrove in society. Shall we go and join in the plays?”
“To be sure we shall!” cried Billy. “You needn't mind; all the grown people are going to.”
On entering the parlor we found it as he had said. The guests being almost all well acquainted with each other, at the solicitation of jolly little Mrs. Bloomingal, Sister Lu had consented to make a pleasant Christmas kind of time of it, in which everybody was permitted to be young again and romp with the rompiest. We played Blindman's-buff till we tired of that—Daniel, to Lu's great delight, coming out splendidly as Blindman, and evincing such “cheek” in the style he hunted down and caught the ladies, as satisfied me that nothing but his sight stood in the way of his making an audacious figure in the world. Then a pretty little girl, Tilly Turtelle, who seemed quite a premature flirt, proposed “Doorkeeper”—a suggestion accepted with great éclat by all the children, several grown people assenting.
To Billy—quite as much on account of his shining prominence in the executive faculties of his character, as host—was committed the duty of counting out the first person to be sent into the hall. There were so many of us that “Aina-maina-mona-mike” would not go quite around; but with that promptness of expedient which belongs to genius, Billy instantly added on “Intery-mintery-cutery-corn,” and the last word of the cabalistic formula fell upon me, Edward Balbus. I disappeared into the entry amid peals of happy laughter from both old and young, calling, when the door opened again to ask me who I wanted, for the pretty, lisping flirt who had proposed the game. After giving me a coquettish little chirrup of a kiss and telling me my beard scratched, she bade me, on my return, send out to her “Mither Billy Lovegrove.” I obeyed her; my youngest nephew retired and, after a couple of seconds, during which Tilly undoubtedly got what she proposed the game for, Billy being a great favorite with the little girls, she came back pouting and blushing, to announce that he wanted Miss Pilgrim. The young lady showed no mock modesty, but arose at once and laughingly went out to her youthful admirer, who, as I afterward learned, embraced her ardently and told her he loved her better than any girl in the world. As he turned to go back she told him that he might send to her one of her juvenile cousins, Reginald Rumbullion. Now, whether because on this youthful Rumbullion's account Billy had suffered the pangs of that most terrible passion, jealousy, or from his natural enjoyment of playing practical jokes destructive of all dignity in his elders, Billy marched into the room, and, having shut the door behind him, paralyzed the crowded parlor by an announcement that Mr. Daniel Lovegrove was wanted.
I was standing at his side and could feel him' tremble—see him turn pale.
“Dear me!” he whispered, in a choking voice; “can she mean me?”
“Of course she does,” said I. “Who else? Do you hesitate? Surely you can't refuse such an invitation from a lady.”
“No; I suppose not,” said he, mechanically. And, amid much laughter from the disinterested, while the faces of Mrs. Rumbullion and his mother were spectacles of crimson astonishment, he made his exit from the room. Never in my life did I so much long for that instrument, described by Mr. Samuel Weller—a pair of patent, double-million magnifying microscopes of hex-tery power, to see through a deal door. Instead of this I had to learn what happened only by report.