"Quite a success!"
cried my complimentary friends.
"I don't think the princess could have rowed, though—without gravity, you know," said the schoolmaster.
"But she did," said Adela. "I won't have my uncle found fault with. It is a very funny, and a very pretty story."
"What is the moral of it?" drawled Mrs. Cathcart, with the first syllable of moral very long and very gentle.
"That you need not be afraid of ill-natured aunts, though they are witches," said Adela.
"No, my dear; that's not it," I said. "It is, that you need not mind forgetting your poor relations. No harm will come of it in the end."
"I think the moral is," said the doctor, "that no girl is worth anything till she has cried a little."
Adela gave him a quick glance, and then cast her eyes down. Whether he had looked at her I don't know. But I should think not.—Neither the clergyman nor his wife had made any remark. I turned to them.
"I am afraid you do not approve of my poor story," I said.