"That is insulting, you rude little chap, and I shall just go away," returned the voice in indignant tones, followed immediately by the sound of footsteps starting from the chair beside Violet and gradually dying away in the distance.
"Why, she went off in a hurry and I couldn't see her at all!" exclaimed one of the young visitors; then, as everybody laughed, "Oh, of course it was Cousin Ronald or Cousin Max!"
"Why, the voice sounded to me like that of a little girl," said
Violet, "and Cousin Ronald and Max are men."
"Of course they are, and could not talk in the sweet tones of my little girl," said a rough masculine voice that seemed to come from the doorway into the hall.
Involuntarily nearly everybody turned to look for the speaker, but he was not to be seen.
"And who are you and your girl?" asked another voice, seeming to speak from the farther end of the veranda.
"People of consequence, whom you should treat with courtesy," answered the other, who seemed to stand in the doorway.
"As we will if you will come forward and show yourselves," laughed Lucilla, putting up her hand as she spoke to drive away a bee that seemed to buzz about her ears.
"Never mind, Lu; its sting won't damage you seriously," said Max, giving her a look of amusement.
"Oh, hark! here come the soldiers again!" exclaimed Elsie Embury, as the notes of a bugle, quickly followed by those of the drum and fife, seemed to come from a distant point on the farther side of the bayou.