"Isn't it nice that all five of us are going to send something?" she said complacently. "You know that nobody but exhibitors can go into the tent for the first hour—from eleven to twelve—so's they can see everything before the crowd gets in. Who'll you stay with, Miss Molly Mumchance, when we all leave you?"
I had not spoken while the talk went on, for fear something might slip out and betray me, prematurely, but I took fire at this.
"I'm going in, myself!" I snapped out.
"Oh, you are? What are you going to exhibit, may we ask?" with her nasty laugh.
"The biggest beet in the world! It measures a yard around."
"Hoo! hoo! hoo!" squealed Paulina so loudly that my father, who was coming in the gate with my mother, Miss Davidson, Uncle Carter, and Aunt Eliza, said pleasantly:—
"What is the joke, young ladies? Mayn't we laugh, too?"
Madeline Pemberton answered. Miss Davidson had to reprove her every day for forwardness.
"Why, Mr. Burwell,"—laughing with affected violence,—"Molly says she is going to send some beets to the Fair that measure ever so many yards around."
"I didn't!" cried I, in a passion. "You know that isn't true!"