"Throw the letter into the street, Phemy!" cried Miss Dundas, affecting sudden terror; "who knows but what it is a fever the man has got, and we may all catch our deaths."
"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Mary, in a voice of real alarm; but it was for Thaddeus—not fear of any infection which the paper might bring to herself.
"Lascelles, take away that filthy scrawl from Phemy. How can you be so headstrong, child?" cried Diana, snatching the letter from her sister and throwing it from the window. "I declare you are sufficient to provoke a saint."
"Then you may keep your temper, Di," returned Euphemia, with a sneer; "you are far enough from that title."
Miss Dundas made a very angry reply, which was retaliated by another; and a still more noisy and disagreeable altercation might have taken place had not a good-humored lad, a brother-in-law of Lady Hilliars, in hopes of calling off the attention of the sisters, exclaimed, "Bless me, Miss Dundas, your little dog has pulled a folded sheet of paper from under that stand of flowers! Perhaps it may be of consequence."
"Fly! Take it up, George!" cried Lady Hilliars; "Esop will tear it to atoms whilst you are asking questions."
After a chase round the room, over chairs and under tables, George Hilliars at length plucked the devoted piece of paper out of the dog's mouth; and as Miss Beaufort was gathering up her working materials to leave the room, he opened it and cried, in a voice of triumph, "By Jove, it is a copy of verses!"
"Verses!" demanded Euphemia, feeling in her pocket, and coloring; "let me see them."
"That you sha'n't," roared Lascelles, catching them out of the boy's hand; "if they are your writing, we will have them."
"Help me, Mary!" cried Euphemia, turning to Miss Beaufort; "I know that nobody is a poet in this house but myself. They must be mine, and I will have them."