“Shall I tell you why she does, Uncle Crad? Shall I tell you in plain English? Most likely you will be shocked, you know.”
“My dear, I am so used to you, that I am never shocked now at anything.”
“Then it is because she is such a jolly liar.”
“Eoa, I really must send you to a ‘nice institution for young ladies.’ You get worse and worse.”
“If you do, Iʼll jump over the wall the first night, and Bob shall come to catch me. But now without any nonsense, uncle, for you do talk a good deal of nonsense, will you promise me one thing?”
“A dozen, if you like, my darling. Anything in reason. You did look so like your poor father then.”
“Oh, I am so glad of that. But it is not a thing of reason, uncle; it is simply a thing of justice. Now will you promise solemnly to send away Mrs. Corklemore, and never speak to her again, if she vows that she knows nothing of this, and if I prove from her own handwriting that it is her plot altogether, and also another plot against us, every bit as bad, if not worse?”
“Of course, Eoa, I will promise you that, as solemnly as you please. What a deluded child you are!”
“Am I? Now let her come in, and deny it. Thatʼs the first part of the business.”
Without waiting for an answer, she ran to fetch Mrs. Corklemore, whom she well knew where to find, that time of the afternoon. Dear Georgie had just had her cup of tea with the darling Flore, in her private audience–chamber—”oratory” she called it, though all her few prayers were public; and now she was meditating what dress she should wear at dinner. Those dinners were so dreadfully dull, unless she could put Eoa into a vehement passion—which was not very hard to do—and so exhibit her in a pleasant light before the serving–men. Yet, strange to say, although the young lady observed little moderation, when she was baited thus, and sunk irony in invective, the sympathies of the audience were far more often on her side than on that of the soft tormentor.