“Haven’t the remotest idea; perhaps Johnson, or Walker, or Webster may—yes, Webster is sure to.”
“Oh! never mind just now, dear Jane, we can look it up afterwards—‘stivers—sticks and stivers’—something very dreadful, I fear. ‘But we’re all safe and well now’—I’m so thankful!—‘and we’ve been stumped’—No ‘starved nearly to death, too. My poor Ailie was thinner than ever I saw her before’—This is horrible, dear Jane.”
“Dreadful, darling Martha.”
“‘But she’s milk and butter’—It can’t be that—‘milk and’—oh!—‘much better now.’”
At this point Martha laid down the letter, and the two sisters wept for a few seconds in silence.
“Darling Ailie!” said Martha, drying her eyes, “how thin she must have been!”
“Ah! yes, and no one to take in her frocks.”
“‘We’ll be home in less than no time,’” continued Martha, reading, “‘so you may get ready for us. Glynn will have tremendous long yarns to spin to you when we come back, and so will Ailie. She has seen a Lotofun since we left you’—Bless me! what can that be, Jane?”
“Very likely some terrible sea monster, Martha; how thankful we ought to be that it did not eat her!—‘seen a Lotofun’—strange!—‘a Lot—o’’—Oh!—‘lot o’ fun!’—that’s it! how stupid of me!—‘and my dear pet has been such an ass’—Eh! for shame, brother.”
“Don’t you think, dear, Martha, that there’s some more of that word on the next line?”