“There’s your only chance,” said Miss Flossy, with decision.
Mr. Morpeth meditated. He looked at the lake, where there was no longer sign or sound of the canoe, and he looked at Miss Flossy, who sat calm, self-confident and careless, on the string-piece of the dock.
“I don’t know how feasible—” he began.
“It’s feasible,” said Miss Flossy, with decision. “Of course Pauline will write to Mama, and of course Mama will write and scold me. But she’s got to stay in New York, and nurse Papa’s gout; and the Miss Redingtons are all the chaperons we’ve got up here, and they don’t amount to any thing—so I don’t care.”
“But why,” inquired the young man; and his tone suggested a complete abandonment to Miss Flossy’s idea: “why should you take so much trouble for me?”
“Mr. Morpeth,” said Miss Flossy, solemnly, “I’m two years behind the time-table, and I’ve got to make a strike for liberty, or die. And besides,” she added, “if you are nice, it needn’t be such an awful trouble.”
Mr. Morpeth laughed.
“I’ll try to make it as little of a bore as possible,” he said, extending his hand. The girl did not take it.
