“But I’d have got something if I’d succeeded in upsetting the boat,” said Lucia: “I’d have got a ducking.”
Then everybody laughed,—everybody but Mrs. Tramlay, who intimated to Marge that Lucia was simply being ruined by her father’s indulgence.
The dinner ended, the host and Marge retired to the library to smoke. Phil was invited to accompany them, but Lucia exclaimed,—
“Phil has been too well brought up to have such bad habits. He is going to keep me from feeling stupid, as ladies always do while gentlemen smoke after dinner.”
She took Phil’s arm and led him to the drawing-room, where the young man soon showed signs of being more interested in the pictures on the wall than in the girl by his side.
“These are very different from the pictures you used to see in our little parlor in Haynton,” said Phil. “Different from any in our town, in fact.”
“Are they?” said Lucia. “But you might be loyal to home, and insist that yours were unlike any in New York; because they were, you know.”
“I didn’t suppose they were anything unusual,” said Phil, quite innocently.
“Oh, they were, though,” insisted Lucia, with much earnestness. “I’m sure you couldn’t find one of them in any parlor in New York. Let me see: I do believe I could name them all, if I were to close my eyes a moment. There was ‘General Taylor at the Battle of Buena Vista,’ ‘The Destruction of Jerusalem,’ the ‘Declaration of Independence,’ ‘Napoleon’s Tomb at St. Helena,’ ‘Rock of Ages,’ ‘George Washington,’ Peale’s ‘Court of Death,’ ‘Abraham Lincoln and his Family,’ and ‘Rum’s Deadly Upas-Tree.’ There!”
“Your memory is remarkable,” said Phil. “I didn’t suppose any one had even noticed our pictures at all; for I’m sure they are old-fashioned.”