"Where's the soft soap?"
Fleda's book went down and her heart jumped to her mouth, for her uncle was sitting over by the window. Mrs. Rossitur looked up in a maze and waited for the question to be repeated.
"I say, where's the soft soap?"
"Soft soap!" said Mrs. Rossitur,--"I don't know whether there is any.--Fleda, do you know?"
"I was trying to think, aunt Lucy. I don't believe there is any."
"Where is it?" said Barby.
"There is none, I believe," said Mrs. Rossitur.
"Where was it, then?"
"Nowhere--there has not been any in the house," said Fleda, raising herself up to see over the back of her sofa.
"There ha'n't been none!" said Miss Elster, in a tone more significant than her words, and shutting the door as abruptly as she had opened it.