“I want the girlie,” said Cyria.
“Very well, you shall have Mary.”
“An’ she must go seepie in my beddie.”
“Possibly later, but not just now,” said her adopted father; then he took her away in the house.
“Nice man, that,” I said.
“Rather,” observed Gringo wisely, and with an eloquent shake of his square head.
“Gringo,” I said, “I hear that old Mrs. Resterton is coming out here.”
“She arrived to-day,” replied Gringo. “She stood that big house in New York as long as she could. She thought she was in heaven when the boss let her run it, and she had what she’s been, longing for—that is, lots of dough. But she isn’t as smart as little missie, her granddaughter, and she found that though her place was just as firm in sassiety——”
“Society, Gringo,” I said. “You never do pronounce that right.”
“So-ciety then,” continued the old dog. “She was as strong in it as Grant’s tomb, but the butterfly world fluttered by, when she no longer had her gamesome wasp. So she wrote mister. I thought he’d smother laughing. He took the letter out to the orchard, for the old lady didn’t want missis to know. She said in it everything she didn’t mean, but mister read between the lines. She missed her granddaughter Stanna, and her great-granddaughter Cyria——”