“A basketful of bees!” said Mrs. Porett, laughing: “Oh, you are mistaken: I know what the boy has in his basket—they are only flowers; they are not bees: you may safely go by them.”
“Put I saw pees with my own eyes,” persisted Betty.
“Only a basketful of the bee orchis, which I commissioned a little boy to bring from St. Vincent’s rocks for my young botanists,” said Mrs. Porett to Angelina: “you know the flower is so like a bee, that at first sight you might easily mistake it.” Mrs. Porett, to convince Betty Williams that she had no cause for fear, went on before her into the hall; but Betty still hung back, crying—
“It is a pasket full of pees! I saw the pees with my own eyes.”
The noise she made excited the curiosity of the young ladies in the dancing-room: they looked out to see what was the matter.
“Oh, ‘tis the wee-wee French prisoner boy, with the bee orchises for us—there, I see him standing in the hall,” cried Clara Hope, and instantly she ran, followed by several of her companions, into the hall.
“You see that they are not bees,” said Mrs. Porett to Betty Williams, as she took several of the flowers in her hand. Betty, half convinced, yet half afraid, moved a few steps into the hall.
“You have no cause for dread,” said Clara Hope; “poor boy, he has nought in his basket that can hurt any body.”
Betty Williams’s heavy foot was now set upon the train of Clara’s gown, and, as the young lady sprang forwards, her gown, which was of thin muslin, was torn so as to excite the commiseration of all her young companions.
“What a terrible rent! and her best gown!” said they. “Poor Clara Hope!”