“I never see her. I don’t ’ave no bad feelings for ’er now, for if she didn’t interfere wid me, I wouldn’t be goin’ away to-morrow. But I glad she didn’t get Tom, for that teach people like she not to interfere wid other gurls’ intendeds,” Susan replied.
“She an’ her mother must be cursing y’u,” said Cordelia with a shrill laugh. “You are all right, an’ they are all wrong! Y’u ought to sing ‘Sound the loud Timbrel o’er Egypt’s Dark Sea,’ Sue, because y’u really beat them out,” and she fingered her song folio suggestively.
“Ladies,” said Susan, taking the hint, “don’t you think Miss Sampson should favour us with a song?”
Her careful pronunciation and formal speech was, as it were, a call to order; it meant that the serious business of the evening was about to begin.
Miss Sampson simpered, opened her book, said, “You must ’elp me with the chorus,” and then uttered a terrifying scream.
In the choir she must have been a disturbing element. As a soloist she was indisputably remarkable. Yet that did not prevent the company from assisting her with the chorus to the best of the ability of their lungs; and when the song was ended they expressed themselves as enraptured.
It was after that that Susan’s sisters handed round glasses of kola and bits of cake in saucers, and while the guests were enjoying these refreshments Jones came in.
He was duly introduced, but would not sit down.
“Some friends of mine,” he explained, “want to give me a send-off; so while you girls enjoyin’ you’selves here, I will go an’ enjoy meself with a few males.”
This was disappointing to the girls, who had already begun to find the society of their own sex a little dull.