"David Richie needn't talk about 'little girls' any more. I'm engaged!" She put the lamp down on the mantelpiece, shook her mane of hair back over her bare shoulders, and then, her hands on her hips, her short petticoat ruffling about her knees, she began to dance. "Somebody is in love with me!
"'Oh, isn't it joyful, joyful, joyful—'"
[Illustration: "BLAIR IS IN LOVE WITH ME!">[
CHAPTER VI
When the company had gone,—"I thought they never would go!" Nannie said—she rushed at her brother. "Blair!"
The boy flung up his head proudly. "She told you, did she?"
"You're engaged!" cried Nannie, ecstatically.
Blair started. "Why!" he said. "So I am! I never thought of it." And when he got his breath, the radiant darkness of his eyes sparkled into laughter. "Yes, I'm engaged!" He put his hands into his pockets and strutted the length of the room; a minute later he stopped beside the piano and struck a triumphant chord; then he sat down and began to play uproariously, singing to a crashing accompaniment:
"'… lived a miner, a forty-niner, With his daughter Clementine! Oh my darling, oh my darling—'"
—the riotous, beautiful voice rang on, the sound overflowing through the long rooms, across the hall, even into the dining-room. Harris, wiping dishes in the pantry, stopped, tea-towel in hand, and listened; Sarah Maitland, at her desk, lifted her head, and the pen slipped from her fingers. Blair, spinning around on the piano-stool, caught his sister about her waist in a hug that made her squeak. Then they both shrieked with laughter.