“Sister!” I repeated, in a louder voice.
“Well, what is it?” she inquired, drily, without looking up.
“Pray, Virginia, leave off your play, and talk to me.”
“Certainly, that is an inducement. I have had so little of your tongue of late, that I ought to feel gratified by your proposal. Why don’t you bring your friend, and let him try a little in that line too. You have been playing double dummy long enough to get tired of it, I should think. But go on with the game, if it please you; it don’t trouble me, I assure you.
“A Yankee ship and a Yankee crew,
Tally high ho, you know!
Won’t strike to the foe while the sky it is blue,
And a tar’s aloft or alow.
“Come now, little Fan! Fan! don’t go too near the bank, or you may get a ducking, do you hear?”
“Pray, sister Virginia, give over this badinage: I have something of importance to say to you.”
“Importance! What! are you going to get married? No, that can’t be it—your face is too portentous and lugubrious; you look more like one on the road to be hanged—ha, ha, ha!”
“I tell you, sister, I am in earnest.”
“Who said you wasn’t? In earnest? I believe you, my boy.”