William was vaguely cheered by her attitude.
“Are you keen on this piffling wedding affair?” she went on carelessly, “’cause I jolly well tell you I’m not.”
William felt that he had found a kindred spirit. He unbent so far as to take her to the stable and show her a field-mouse he had caught and was keeping in a cardboard box.
“I’m teachin’ it to dance,” he confided, “an’ it oughter fetch a jolly lot of money when it can dance proper. Dancin’ mice do, you know. They show ’em on the stage, and people on the stage get pounds an’ pounds every night, so I bet mice do, too—at least the folks the mice belong to what dance on the stage. I’m teachin’ it to dance by holdin’ a biscuit over its head and movin’ it about. It bit me twice yesterday.” He proudly displayed his mutilated finger. “I only caught it yesterday. It oughter learn all right to-day,” he added hopefully.
Her intense disappointment, when the only trace of the field-mouse that could be found was the cardboard box with a hole gnawed at one corner, drew William’s heart to her still more.
He avoided Henry, Douglas and Ginger. Henry, Douglas and Ginger had sworn to be at the church door to watch William descend from the carriage in the glory of his white satin apparel, and William felt that friendship could not stand the strain.
He sat with Dorita on the cold and perilous perch of the garden wall and discussed Cousin Sybil and the wedding. Dorita’s language delighted and fascinated William.
“She’s a soppy old luny,” she would remark sweetly, shaking her dark curls. “The soppiest old luny you’d see in any old place on this old earth, you betcher life! She’s made of sop. I wouldn’t be found dead in a ditch with her—wouldn’t touch her with the butt-end of a bargepole. She’s an assified cow, she is. Humph!”
“SHE’S A SOPPY OLD LUNY!” DORITA REMARKED SWEETLY.