"I don't know, ma'am, upon my word. I presume Carleton will tell you she is something uncommon and quite remarkable."
"Is she, Mr. Carleton?"
"What, ma'am?"
"Uncommon?"
"Very."
"Come! That is something, from you," said Rossitur's brother officer, Lieut. Thorn.
"What's the uncommonness?" said Mrs. Thorn, addressing herself rather to Mr. Rossitur as she saw Mr. Carleton's averted eye;--"Is she handsome, Mr. Rossitur?"
"I can't tell you, I am sure, ma'am. I saw nothing but a nice child enough in a calico frock, just such as one would see in any farm-house. She rushed into the room when she was first called to see us, from somewhere in distant regions, with an immense iron ladle a foot and a half long in her hand with which she had been performing unknown feats of housewifery; and they had left her head still encircled with a halo of kitchen-smoke. If as they say 'coming events cast their shadows before,' she was the shadow of supper."
"Oh Carleton, Carleton!" said Mrs. Evelyn, but in a tone of very gentle and laughing reproof,--"for shame! What a picture! and of your cousin!"
"Is she a pretty child, Guy?" said Mrs. Carleton, who did not relish her son's grave face.