“My name! So you want to know my name. I arn't ashamed of my own; 'tis Emily S——. I am eldest daughter to the gentleman who owns this house.”
“What must the father be,” thought I, “if he resembles the young lady, his daughter?”
Imagine a young lady, dressed in ragged petticoats, through whose yawning rents peeped forth, from time to time, her bare red knees, with uncombed elf-locks, and a face and hands that looked as if they had been unwashed for a month—who did not know A from B, and despised those who did. While these reflections, combined with a thousand ludicrous images, were flitting through my mind, my strange visitor suddenly exclaimed—
“Have you done with that 'ere decanter I brought across yesterday?”
“Oh, yes! I have no occasion for it.” I rose, took it from the shelf, and placed it in her hand.
“I guess you won't return it empty; that would be mean, father says. He wants it filled with whiskey.”
The mystery was solved, the riddle made clear. I could contain my gravity no longer, but burst into a hearty fit of laughter, in which I was joined by Hannah. Our young lady was mortally offended; she tossed the decanter from hand to hand, and glared at us with her tiger-like eyes.
“You think yourselves smart! Why do you laugh in that way?”
“Excuse me—but you have such an odd way of borrowing that I cannot help it. This bottle, it seems, was brought over for your own convenience, not for mine. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have no whiskey.”
“I guess spirits will do as well; I know there is some in that keg, for I smells it.”