‘I am so sorry, but my father is not at home,’ stammered William Henry.
‘Well, really!’ returned the lady reproachfully.
‘At all events, we are not sorry,’ said Mrs. Jordan slily.
‘I did not mean—you know what I mean,’ pleaded William Henry with a blush that they probably envied. ‘I am so sorry to be so awkward, but I am very young.’
‘Does he mean to say that we are not?’ ejaculated Mrs. Powell with a majestic air. ‘Great heavens!’
‘I think, sister, since he has thrown himself upon the mercy of the court,’ interposed Mrs. Jordan good-naturedly, ‘that we should not be hard upon him.’
‘Youth and inexperience,’ exclaimed Mrs. Powell judicially, ‘are no excuses for crime; but since my learned sister—— You have seen her as Portia, no doubt, young man, and a very pretty lawyer she makes—don’t you think so?
It was like two people speaking from the same mouth—the one all gaiety, the other all merriment.
‘Of course I have seen her, who has not?’ said William Henry, plucking up his courage, though with such desperation that it almost came away by the roots.
‘That’s much better,’ smiled Mrs. Jordan approvingly.