Starting aloft for the napkins, Looloo was adroitly tripped by Tee Wee, and fell back upon him with a little shriek. Instead of checking the tumult that followed, Major Cooney, including Carlisle in the proceedings with a mischievous wink, called out: "Give it to him, Loo! Give it to him!" Loo, having got her small hand in his hair, gave it to him, good-fashion. Tee Wee moaned, and Chas made a fairly successful effort to gag him with the newspaper. In the midst of the uproar, Mrs. Cooney's gentle voice could be heard calling, "Supper, supper," and Hen, entering with a large dinner-bell, conceived the whimsey of ringing it loudly in everybody's ear.
Presently, after much noise and confusion, they were seated at the antique mahogany, with the dent near one edge where a Yankee cavalryman had rested his spurred foot too carelessly once upon a time. It was then observed that Hen, having silenced her great clapper, was unobtrusively gone from the midst. The circumstance proved of interest to the younger Cooneys.
"She's nursing a little bunch of violets she got three days ago," Tee Wee explained to Carlisle. "Says she's going to wear 'em to the Masons' to-morrow, though anybody can see they can't possibly live through the night."
"I thought I saw a purple box in the front window as I drove up," said Carlisle. "Is it a secret who sent them?"
"'Bout forty," said Chas, making a fine one-hand catch of a napkin. "You'd hardly call 'em a bunch, Tee Wee--more like a nosegay."
"Pass this coffee to Cally, son."
"Bob Dunn sent 'em, Cally, down at the bookstore," said Looloo, sweetly. "And he wrote Hen a love-letter Thanksgiving beginning, 'Darling Miss Cooney.'"
"That so?" said Tee Wee, who was just home from the University for Christmas and not up on all the news yet. "How'd he sign it--'Your loving Mr. Dunn'?"
"'Ave some werry nice 'am, Cally?"
"Yes--thank you. But do go on and tell me about Mr. Dunn. Does Hen like him?"