I was conscious of murmuring voices: What a terrible little girl; indeed the whole family; as for the mother—Yes—my pupils, and, for the present, my wards—Once they even threw a dead rat over!
Then up spoke Mrs. Handsomebody. "Put on your clothes," she ordered, "and meet me at the corner. I shall be waiting."
IV
We had put on our clothes. We had met her but, good Heaven! what a Rendezvous! She, and Angel, and I were pallid with suppressed emotions, while The Seraph's face was flushed crimson. He was weeping loudly, as he followed in our wake, and walking with some difficulty, since Angel and I, in our agitation, had put his trousers on back to front.
Mrs. Handsomebody placed us in a row, on three chairs in the dining-room, and seated herself opposite to us. After removing her bonnet, and giving it to Mary Ellen to carry upstairs to the wardrobe, she said:
"If I believed that you realized the enormity of what you have done, I should write to South America to your father, and tell him that I would no longer undertake the responsibility of three boys so evilly inclined. What do you suppose my sensations were when, at the close of the lecture, the other ladies, the professor, our pastor, and myself adjourned to the garden for tea, to find you three perched, almost nude, on a wall, in such company?"
"Do you know that those people are not respectable? The man, I am told, is a rake, who attends cockfights, and the mother of those children has been seen in the garden—tight!"
"Was that the lady in pink satin?" asked Angel, showing interest for the first time.
"I daresay. One would expect to find her in pink satin."
The lecture went on, but I did not hear it; my mind dwelt insistently on thoughts of the lady in pink.