"I wanted"—commenced Verty—
"Oh, don't tell me what you wanted!" cried Fanny; "you saw in the garden here two nice young girls, if I do say it—"
"You may—!"
"I am not to be led off in that way, sir! I say you saw two agreeable young ladies here evidently not indisposed to talk with visitors, as it's a holiday—and in spite of that, you pass your time in the house with that old Sallianna, cooing and wooing and brewing," added Miss Fanny, inventing a new meaning for an old word on the spur of the moment, "and after that you expect us to believe you when you say you are not in love with her—though what you see to like in that old thing it would take a thousand million sybils, to say nothing of oracles and Pythonesses, to explain!"
With which exhausting display of erudition, Miss Fanny lay back on her trellised seat, and shook from the point of her slippers to the curls on her forehead with a rush of laughter.
Redbud had recovered from her momentary confusion, and, with a beseeching glance at Fanny, said to Verty:
"How much better you look, Verty, in this dress—indeed you look more homelike."
"Do I?" said the happy Verty, bending his head over his shoulder to admire the general effect; "well, I feel better."
"I should think so."
"The other clothes were like a turkey blind."