"I'm afraid so—but they wanted some so badly."
Ida suspected, from her stammering, that more substantial food would have been as acceptable.
"I came partly on business, Laura," she hastened to say, apprehending an irruption from the interior. "I am trying to get up a school in the neighborhood, to be taught at Sunnybank, by a friend of mine—"
"Miss Ross! do I in truth, have the felicity?" Ida groaned in spirit. "The softened image of my ever lamented friend!" continued the inebriate, whose headache was easily accounted for. Putting his hand to his heart, he heaved a profound sigh. "Ah! my dear young lady! may you have the inheritance of his transcendant virtues, as of his faultless physiognomy! Laura, my daughter—have you offered our guest refreshments?"
"Excuse me, sir! I have not time to partake of them. I was apologising to Laura for my first visit being a business call."
"She wants to open a school up at Sunnybank, papa. Do let us go!" cried the girl, eagerly. His face wore a mask of extreme concern.
"It cannot be! the righteous Fates can never be so oblivious to unparalleled excellence as to ordain that you—the solitary scion of an aristocratic race, shall be reduced by unpropitious vicissitudes, to the necessity of maintaining yourself by the arduous employment of imparting instruction to the juvenile mind!"
"A friend is to be the instructress, sir. I shall exercise a general supervision."
"What a mountain you remove! I trembled at the supposition that you were precipitated upon the frozen charities of a mercenary world. Ah, my young friend! the most shameful part of human hypocrisy is the heartless repudiation of unmerited exigency!"