"Why, you ninny," cried Joe, in response to the "goose" compliment just passed—"that man who has just left us—that man who is coming back in a moment—is the owner of the eyes; and those eyes are my destiny!"
"Pshaw!" said Bell, "I did not see anything remarkable about the eyes, or the man."
"Didn't you, now!" said Josephine, with the least bit in the world of pique in her voice. "Well, that is the fault of your eyes, and not of his. I tell you those eyes are my destiny—I feel it and know it. I have not seen a pair before in a long while, that looked as if they could laugh and make love at the same time, and still have a little lightning in reserve for somebody they hated. Mr. Tom Leslie—well, it is a rather pretty name, and I think I must take him."
"For shame, Joe!" said Miss Bell, her propriety really shocked at the idea of a young girl declaring herself, even in jest, in love with a man who had said nothing to justify the preference.
"Yes, I suppose it is all wrong!" said Joe, between a sigh and a laugh. "You know I have been doing wrong things all my life, and anything else would not be natural. Do you remember, Bell," and her dark eyes had an expression of demure fun in them that was irresistibly droll—"do you remember how I left all my trunks unlocked and my room door open, at the Philadelphia hotel when we were stopping there one winter on our way from Washington,—and how I left my purse on the bureau in my room and grabbed a gentleman by the arm in the street, accusing him of picking my pocket?"
"I do remember," said Bell, a little with the air of a very proper Mentor who was not in the habit of making corresponding blunders. "And I should think, Joe, that now that you are a little older you would be a little more careful!"
"Yes, I daresay you do," answered Miss Josey, "but you know that I am myself and nobody else. I should stagnate and die in a week, if I was either one of those 'wealthy curled darlings' kept in exact position by the possession of too many thousands, or so hemmed by more confined worldly circumstances that I dared not take one step without stopping to consider the consequences. Hang propriety!—I hate propriety! Now you have it, and you may eat it with that last wafer!"
"How you do run on!" merely remarked Bell, who probably enjoyed the wild girl's conversation quite as much as she was capable of enjoying anything.
"Yes," said Joe, "and I should like to know any reason for stopping, at least before our impressed beau comes back. Has he gone off to make arrangements with the fortune-teller, I wonder, so as to play a trick upon us when we get there?"
"Eh," said Bell, a little startled, "could such a trick be possible!"