“The small but deadly American bison, the reveler in wool, the destroyer of homes, the blighter of clothes—the living, eating, riotous buffalo-bug. Here in the folds of my crimson gown I traced his fell path. Now, Eureka! I have found him, and in the interest of my fellow-mortals I will impale him on a pin and broil him on a burning match.”
“Poor little bug!” said Elfie, watching him shrivel.
“He don’t mind it much,” said Lily, “or if he did he doesn’t now. I’m not fond of killing things, pet, but buffalo-bugs must die. Is it not so, fellow-citizens?”
The fellow-citizens to whom she appealed were represented by Edna, Katie, Marion, Fannie, and Bell. They all laughed except Bell. She looked very solemn.
“O, my dear Bell,” said Lily, “was Mr. Buffalo Bug a friend of yours? Your smileless face, your solemn eyes, terrify me. This tragedy has wounded you. O, how little did I think that the pale martyr—no, I beg his pardon, the brown and yellow, fuzzy martyr—at the stake was dear to you. Why was I born to make you suffer thus?”
“Stop,” said Fannie; “you’re too silly for any thing, Lily. What ails Bell is that she don’t like to go home to-morrow without telling Mrs. Abbott that we went to the station alone.”
“And why doesn’t she tell?” asked Lily, growing grave instantly.
“Because I don’t want her to,” said Fannie. “The thing is past and gone, and there’s no use in reviving it.”
“That’s where you’re right,” said Edna. “What a fool you’d be to go and tell on yourselves now. Mrs. Abbott never’ll find out if you don’t tell, and what Bell wants to get herself and you into a muss for I, for one, don’t see. There was some danger, I thought myself, that the delightful young man would speak of it to her. But he’s evidently a fraud; no man who wanted to put his sister at school would climb up and grin at the girls over the back fence.”
“Hardly,” said Fannie, “and I’m glad you think as I do. Bell’s too tiresome for any thing.”