"Do try to stop them from making such a noise, Joseph. What will the neighbours think of us?"
"They'll believe you're a howlin' swell, aunt Dorcas, an' everybody will be wantin' to look at you."
"Let us get out as quick as ever we can, or the policeman will accuse us of making a disturbance."
It was necessary aunt Dorcas should remain where she was until the driver had opened the carriage door. By that time Plums's friends had gathered around the vehicle, gazing with open-mouthed astonishment at Joe, who was clad in a new suit of clothes, and looked quite like a little gentleman.
Aunt Dorcas was actually trembling as she descended from the carriage, Joe assisting her in the same manner he had seen Mr. Raymond, and the cheers which greeted her did not tend to make the little woman any more comfortable in mind.
The princess's father would have sent his carriage the entire distance but for the fact that aunt Dorcas preferred to arrive at her home in such a conveyance as could be hired in Weehawken.
"It is more suitable," she had said. "While I enjoyed every inch of the ride this morning, I could not help feeling as if we were wearing altogether too fine feathers for working people."
Plums's friends insisted on crossing the ferry with him, and during the passage aunt Dorcas was presented to each in turn, a proceeding which entirely allayed her fears lest they would create an "unseemly disturbance."
"I know I should come to like every one of them," she whispered to Joe, "and before we go ashore you must invite them out to the cottage for a whole day."
"They'd scare the neighbours, aunt Dorcas," Joe said, with a laugh, and the little woman replied, quite sharply: