Grizzel glanced up from her drawing to the still-life study before her.
"He is more the shape of a water-melon," she remarked.
Mollie laughed.
"Be quiet, Grizzel," Prue said angrily. "How can you speak so disrespectfully of Papa? You should be ashamed of yourself."
"I'm not disrespectful," Grizzel answered indignantly. "I think it is a beautiful shape."
Mollie laughed again.
"You are disrespectful," Prue repeated, turning very red. "Papa does the dearest, sweetest things, and all your thanks is to make Mollie laugh at him. It is horrible of you, and I don't call it very nice of Mollie."
"I'm not laughing at your father," Mollie said; "I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. I'm laughing at Grizzel. She is so funny."
"I'm not funny," said Grizzel, turning as red as Prudence, "and if you laugh at Papa for being partly the shape of a water-melon, I'll laugh at your father. Your father is an unripe olive and your mother is a bitter almond," she added vindictively.
But if she expected Mollie to be insulted she was disappointed, for that young person went off into fits of cackling giggles which she vainly tried to suppress. At last she rose to her feet.
"I've got the giggles badly," she spluttered out. "I get them sometimes. I think I had better go away for a little till I am better. I really am not laughing at your father. I think he is a perfectly lovely father."