"Ah, I see visions of more and more batter bread of the Page brand," murmured Zebedee. "I'm going to purchase a big baking dish so you can mix up twice as much."
"Look, there is a girl coming back! Could that be Blanche?" and Dee pointed to a very fat, good-looking, brown-skinned girl, dressed in the very latest and most extreme style of that summer. She wore a very tight skirt of black and white silk with stripes about an inch and a half broad, slit up over a flounced petticoat of royal purple. Her feet, substantial, to say the least, were encased in white canvas shoes with purple ties, and purple cotton stockings were stretched to their utmost over her piano legs (I mean the old square pianos), stretched so tight, in fact, that they took on the gloss of silk. A lavender crêpe de Chine blouse very much open, exposing her capacious chest, and a purple straw hat trimmed with black roses, perched on top of a towering, shiny pompadour, completed the colour scheme. Pinned on her left shoulder was an artificial orchid with a purple bow. In her hand she carried a huge basket covered with a newspaper.
"Are you Blanche Johnson?" I questioned.
"I was about to propound the same inquisition to you when I seen you approaching I," she answered with a mincing manner. "I am consigned to the kind ospices of Mr. Tucker and Miss Page Allison, a young lady who has been since infantry under the jurisprudence of Mrs. Susan Black, my great arnt once removed by intermarriage."
"Well, Blanche, I am Miss Page Allison and this is Mr. Tucker, and Mr. Tucker's daughters, Miss Virginia and Miss Caroline. We came very near missing you as we were looking for the red bow, pinned on your left shoulder."
"Well, now, Miss Page, it was very disappointmenting for me not to be compliable to your requisition, but I belong to an uplifting club at my school and one of our first and most important relegations is that the mimbers must never do nothing nigrified. An' they have decided that the unduly bedizenment of yourself in red garments is the first and foremost nigrification of the race. Hence, therefore, I resolutioned to trust that my kind frinds would indemnify me with this orchard."
"And so we have, Blanche, and now we will go take the electrics for Willoughby," and Zebedee, his face crimson from suppressed merriment, led the way to the car line, while Blanche kept up a steady fire of polite talk.
"There was another reason for my abandonment of the red bow, Miss Page, and that was that I am in kinder sicond mournin' for the disease of my only brother's offspring."
"Oh, I am sorry, Blanche! How old was the child? Was it a boy or girl?"
"Well, it wa'nt to say any age, as the angel was borned daid, and as for the slight differentation in sex, I was so woeful I done forgot to arsk my po' bereaved brother whether it were the fair sex or the inversion."