"Why could she whine in the cellar, father? That point isn't clear, sir," said Tee Wee's deep voice.
"Because it was a whine-cellar!" cried Hen, through the portières.
There was mild laughter at this, rather derisive on the part of all but the Major; but when Chas, glancing up from his paper, remarked crisply: "Aw, Miss Mamie! Like to speak to you a minute, please!"--the merriment seemed mysteriously to acquire a more genuine ring. Carlisle politely inquired who Miss Mamie was.
Looloo, who alone seemed the least bit awed by the presence of her dazzling cousin, undertook to explain.
"She's Mamie Willis, Cally,--I don't believe you know her. Well, you see she's always making the most atrocious puns, and is very proud of them--thinks she's quite a wit. So, you see, when anybody makes an awfully bad pun, like Hen's--"
"Brightest thing I've heard to-night," screamed Hen, defiantly, through the curtains.
"Aw, Loo!" came her mother's soft voice from the unseen. "Run upstairs and get half a dozen napkins, my child. The wash is in the basket on my bed."
"We always pretend like we're repeating it to Miss Mamie, just for fun," concluded Looloo. "Yes'm, mother!"
"Oh! I see," said Carlisle.
She had donned for the coming to supper a plain house-dress of soft dark-green silk, two summers old and practically discarded. ("This old thing, my dear! Why, it positively belongs in the rag-bag!") She never dressed much for the Cooneys. Also, by wholly mechanical processes of adjustment to environment, her manner and air became simpler, somewhat unkeyed: she unconsciously folded away her more shining wings. Nevertheless, there was about her to-night a fleeting kind of radiance which had caught the notice of more than one of her cavalier cousins, notably of pretty little Looloo, who had kissed the visitor shyly (for a Cooney) at greeting, and said, "Oh, Cally! You do look so lovely!" Cally herself was aware of an inner buoyance oddly at variance with the drab Cooney milieu. Recent progress in the great game had more than blotted out all memory of little mishaps at the Beach....