“Oh!” said Bee, impatient, “as if proposing was all! Do you think he just came out with it point blank—‘Miss Kingsward, will you marry me?’ ”
“Well,” said Betty: “what did he say then if he didn’t say that?”
“Oh, you little goose!” said Bee.
“I am sure if he had said ‘Oh, you little goose’ to me,” said Betty, “I should never have spoken a word to him again.”
“It is no use talking to little girls,” said Bee, with a sigh. “You don’t understand; and, to be sure, how could you understand—at your age and all?”
“Age!” said Betty, indignant, “there is but fifteen months between us, and I’ve always done everything with you. We’ve always had on new things together, and gone to the same places and everything. It is you that are very unkind now you have got engaged; and I do believe you like this big horrid man better than me.”
“Oh, you little goose!” said Bee, again.
“No, it isn’t a big but a little, horrid man. I made a mistake,” said Betty, “not like Captain Kreutzner that you used to like so much. It’s small people you care for now; not your own nice people like me and mamma, but a man that you had never heard the name of when you first came here, and now you quote and praise him, and make the most ridiculous fuss about him, even to Charlie, who is far nicer-looking!—and won’t even tell your sister what he says!”
This argument came to so high a tone that mamma called out from her room to know what was amiss. “It does not become you girls to carry on your old scuffles and quarrels,” she said, “now that one of you, at least, is so grown up and about to take upon herself the responsibilities of life.”
“Is Aubrey a responsibility?” Betty whispered in her sister’s ears.