She looked at Aunt with an assurance as calm as if there were no interdict upon social experiments.
"Impossible!" gasped Aunt, glancing despairingly in the direction in which her ally had disappeared. "Why, Nelly doesn't leave the house; I've stopped her attendance even at Barnard."
"And quite right; but a private house isn't a big school, nor yet the Opera. Of course you say yes, don't you, Helen?"
"Yes, yes! A dance! Oh, I'm going to a dance! Play for me, Milly; play for me!"
Humming a bar of a waltz, I caught Aunt Frank in my arms, and whirled her about the room until she begged for mercy.
"Oh, you dear people, I'm so happy!" I cried as I stopped, my cheeks glowing, and, falling all about me, a flood of glistening hair; while the General, whose creed is to wonder at nothing, gazed at me in delighted amazement.
"You splen—did creature!" she cried.
"I—I would like to go; Aunt Frank, you will let me?" I said meekly, as too late I realised how differently a New York girl bien élevée would have received the invitation. But, indeed, my heart jumped with rapture.
Without John, Mrs. Baker really didn't know how to refuse me.
"But—but—but—" she stammered.