"You know I didn't mean that!" Lora retorted, in a vexed tone.
"Why, we're aunts!" exclaimed Louise. "Now, isn't that funny? And mamma's a grandmother! that's funnier still!" she added, with a burst of laughter.
Mrs. Dinsmore was in the act of leaving the room, but turned back to say wrathfully, "No such thing! the child is not related to me in the least. So don't let me hear any more of that nonsense."
"Mamma's mad," laughed Louise, "mad enough to shake me, I do believe. She doesn't like to be thought old enough to be a grandmother."
"May be she isn't," said Lora. "Horace was a pretty big boy when papa and mamma were married; wasn't he, Ade?"
"I can't remember before I was born," Adelaide answered teasingly.
"Well, if you don't know about anything but what has happened since you were born, you don't know much," Lora retorted with spirit. "But I'll go and ask mammy. She'll know, for she was here before he was born."
It was a lovely spring day, and from the windows of the breakfast-room they could see Aunt Maria, the old colored woman who had been nurse in the family ever since the birth of Mr. Dinsmore's eldest child, and whom they all called mammy, walking about under the trees in the garden, with Baby Enna in her arms, while Arthur and Walter gambolled together on the grass near by.
"Ki, chillens! what's de mattah?" she exclaimed, pausing in her walk, as the three little girls came bounding toward her in almost breathless excitement.