"Well, cheer up. It's done every day by our best families. And speaking of doing underhanded things," said Peter, "our guests approach rapidly. Up, guards, and at them!"
He took off his terrible Panama and waved it in a friendly manner.
"How-de-do, Mrs. Marne! Morning, candidate! Welcome aboard."
The sister and brother came up the stair, and were cordially greeted by their hosts.
"Ashore again!" ordered Varney over the side. "There is another guest."
"So we have not kept you waiting after all," cried Mrs. Marne, flashing a triumphant eye upon her brother. "Mary is not here yet—the prinker!"
She was dark, vivacious for a chaperon, easily on the correct side of thirty, and arrayed in very light mourning indeed. She had a will: for it was she who had baited J. Pinkney Hare with sociology and politics to abandon the law in New York, at which he was doing rather well, and follow her to Hunston. This was when her husband, a member of Hunston's oldest family—for there was aristocracy in the town—had left her widowed the year of their marriage.
"Three times," Hare elucidated to Varney, "did she tell me, 'I'll be ready in a minute.' And a ten-minute interval elapsed each time, by my grandfather's trusted chronometer."
"Oh, well," said Varney, "who'd put any trust in a woman who was ready when she said she'd be? Let's get into the shade."
"Pinky," said Mrs. Marne, sister-wise, as she turned with Varney, "gets his ideas about women from the comic weeklies."