“Uncle Pete, why do you get up from your chair and look so funny? You almost tossed me on the floor.”
“A thousand pardons, Kit.—I am going to have a smoke on the terrace, and I think it is time for you little women to go to bed.”
“But have you nothing to propose about Nancy?”
“I am afraid not.”
“Are not you interested in her, Uncle Peter? You always seemed to like her so very much.”
“I am interested, but sometimes one cannot see an inch beyond one’s own nose.”
“Oh, Uncle Pete, you are not so blind as all that!”
“At the present moment I am, Kitty. Don’t say any more to-night. Justice must be done to Nancy; of that rest assured.”
The Captain left the room, and the little girls stared at each other; presently they went hand in hand up to bed.
It was not until they left the room that a girl suddenly stepped out from behind a screen, where she had been hiding for the last quarter of an hour. The girl was Augusta.