“What lovely flowers!” cried Marie, holding them to her face.
“Yes, yes; yes, yes!” cried Miss Philippa in a highly pitched and very much cracked but playful voice. “I don’t know what to say to it, I’m sure; do you, sister?”
“No, indeed—indeed,” cried Miss Isabella, in an imitation playful tone.
“It seems to me that our quiet little innocent home is being laid siege to by gentlemen,” prattled Miss Philippa.
“And—and I don’t know what’s coming to us,” said Miss Isabella gaily; and her hands shook, and her head nodded as she laughed, a sad ghost of a youthful hearty sign of mirth.
“But is this for me, aunt?” cried Clotilde, flushing up, and looking handsome in the extreme.
“And this for me, aunt?” cried Marie, whose cheeks could not brook the rivalry displayed by those of her sister.
“Oh, I don’t know, my dears, I’m sure; but it’s very, very, very, very shocking, and you are both very, very, very, very naughty girls to look so handsome, and go to dinner-parties, and captivate gentlemen.”
“And make them lay offerings before your shrines,” prattled Miss Isabella.
“Floral offerings before your shrines,” repeated Miss Philippa, who nodded her approval of her sister’s poetical comparison.