“Neither should I,” said Milly.
“Well, that is queer,” and Hazel looked puzzled. “I hadn't thought of that; but I'm certain his grandfather, if not his father, must have been wild and savage. I'm very sure the mulattoes used to be very ferocious.”
“Where do the mulattoes live?” asked the Marberrys.
“I don't know,” was Hazel's truthful answer. The fact was, as you have discovered, Hazel did not know what she was talking about. She had a trick of mounting an impression, and then of giving rein to her imagination and letting it run away with her, so that the first thing she knew she was telling you something she really quite believed was fact, but which was nothing of the sort. As a result she was sometimes credited with fibbing, and got into many an unnecessary scrape, but, you may be sure, Mrs. Boniface was doing all that she could to correct this unfortunate tendency.
Meantime the boys walked ahead, conversing with no little earnestness as to the comparative merits of two tiny sloop yachts, one of which was taking shape under Starlight's hand, and the other under Flutters's, and whose same comparative merits were to be put to the test, when completed, by a race on the waters of the Collect. At this point in their walk a turn of the road brought St. George's into sight.
“Ever been to church, Flutters?” Starlight asked, quite casually.
“Oh, yes, often.”
“Episcopal?”
“Ye' ep,” was Flutters's unceremonious answer; “but how large are you going to make your foresail?” not willing to be diverted from the all-engrossing subject.
“I shall give her all the sail she can carry, you may be certain.” Starlight did not intend to furnish this rival yachtsman with any exact measurements. And so they talked on till they reached the little stone church, where service had already commenced. The Marberrys walked straight up to their pew, the very front one, but before they reached it each little face flushed crimson. At one and the same moment their two pairs of blue eyes met their father's, for he was leading the General Confession, and did not need to have them upon his book. Judging from the crimson on their faces, the look must have said, “There is no excuse for this, my little daughters; I am ashamed that you should be so late.”