"Do be quiet, children," interrupted Ida, reprovingly; "now, uncle dear, won't you take us? I want some new traps badly."
"What kind of traps?—mouse traps?"
"Man traps, to be sure!"
"Well, that's honest, at least, Puss."
"My purposes are more murderous than Ida's," said Cornelia, laughing; "I
want to buy a new mankiller, as Willie calls them."
"It's too late in the season for mantillas," remarked Ida, profoundly.
"A fashionable cloak will serve Cornelia's purpose equally well," returned her father, quietly.
"And, like the mantle of charity, it will hide a multitude of sins," chimed in her brother.
"Your running commentaries are highly edifying, my dear nephew," said I, and at the same moment a large red rose hit him full on the nose.