They did not dream of Dee's having turned the tables on Mabel Binks as she had done. Mr. Pore was still the country store-keeper and Annie was the same shy girl with her wardrobe as limited as ever, but the wily Dee had turned them into dukes and duchesses in Mabel's eyes, and the snobbish creature was grovelling at the feet of the nobility. I have never seen two persons have as much fun as Tweedles did that evening. They were very quiet but spent the time "sicking Mabel on," as Dee expressed it.
I was pleased to see that Annie did not unbend in the least to her one-time persecutor. In spite of Annie's shyness she had a dignity that was most admirable; and while she was perfectly polite to Mabel, she permitted no advances. Getting invitations to England to visit in grand country houses that still belong to older brothers was certainly up-hill work. Winding purple and grey yarn for Mrs. Garnett and fetching and carrying for her, even agreeing with her at every point, was child's play to this thing of flattering a middle-aged Englishman who seemed to have no conversation at his command but "Aw, reahly!" or "My word!" and trying to undo the work of the last year and make a little English girl forget all the rudeness she had suffered at the hands of her persistent tormentor.
I kept wondering how about the lard and molasses that the middle-aged Englishman would perhaps spend the rest of his life weighing out and drawing from the barrel for his negro customers as well as white; also if Mrs. Binks would still think Gresham too democratic in the class of pupils it enrolled. I so naturally hate a snob that I did not have a pleasant evening at all, and I could not quite see the fun in it that Tweedles did.
I was glad when it was over and we could stretch out on our cots with the pure sea air blowing on us, and, lulled by the soothing sound of the waves lapping the shore, sleep the sleep of the just. We could be thankful, at least, that Mabel Binks was, after all, none of us and when we left Willoughby Beach we might never have to see her again.
As we lay side by side, all of us so quiet that one would have thought sleep held us fast, there was a sudden upheaval from Mary's cot and a sound that might have been sobbing.
"Mary! Mary! What is it?" we demanded. "Are you ill?" And then the possible sobs turned into unmistakable giggles.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! I can't get to sleep for thinking of Mr. Pore's countenance when Mabel told him of her Binks grandfather who dropped his aitches." Then we all went off into shrieks of laughter that very little would have turned into hysterics, if Zebedee had not knocked sternly on our dressing-room door and bade us remember that we had other guests. Of course he meant we must not do anything to make Mr. Pore think we were not perfect ladies, so we subsided with only an occasional upheaval and a smothered snicker.
And while we lay there I thought of a title for a short story and almost got a plot worked out; but I went to sleep before it was quite clear. The title was: "The Machinations of Mabel."