"I shall go home with Miss Carleton."
"Ahem! I comprehend. I should have anticipated this from your overpowering intimacy. You have played your cards badly, Josephine. Why have you not ingratiated yourself with some 'divine creature,' who has a rich papa? It is a capital means of extending one's acquaintance, and sparing one's purse. How long do you intend to sponge—to remain, I mean, with your friend, Miss Ross?"
"I may not return before Christmas. I hear that the holidays are celebrated with much style and festivity, in the country," she replied.
Mr. Read suppressed something very like an oath, at her calm assurance.
"When do you go?"
"Next Monday. Dr. Carleton is expected daily. Did I understand you to say, that you did not object?"
"Confound it! what do I care where, or when you go?"
"Oh Carry!" apostrophized Ida, shutting herself in her room. "Even you could not be charitable and forbearing here. It is hard! hard!"
"That is unquestionably the most wrong-headed girl I know," said Mr. Read, to his daughter.
"I am heartily glad she is not going with us," was the answer. "She would be of no use to me, and an additional care to you."