“In what way, Gussie?”
“I want to see some more of them—oh, so badly! You won’t put an obstacle in my way, will you?”
“I am not the one to do it,” answered Kitty; “but, of course, you can understand, Gussie, that we have all got to obey the Captain.”
“I wish he hadn’t come,” said Augusta suddenly.
“You wish that Uncle Peter—darling Uncle Peter—hadn’t come?”
“Yes; but you need not cry it out quite so loud. I don’t, of course, want him to hear. I am sorry he has come because he is sure to be very strict and proper, and perhaps he won’t like the Asprays.”
“I don’t believe he will have anything to do with them. Oh dear! there is ten o’clock striking, and we must go to bed.”
“Girls,” said the Captain as they re-entered the house, “this night has been pure pleasure; but, you know, business awaits us to-morrow, and before I retire for the night I should just like to run my eye over the orderly-book. Can you get it for me, Nora? Your mother must have left it where you could find it.”
Nora’s face turned white and then pink.
“I am so dreadfully sorry, Uncle Peter,” she exclaimed, “but we have lost the key of the drawer in mother’s chiffonier in which she keeps the orderly-book. It is altogether my fault and Kitty’s. Mother was going off in a great hurry, and she gave us the key, and we can’t find it high or low.”