“Excepting those you make to become better and wiser,” rejoined Lisa, as she ran off. In an instant she was back.
“Lord bless us! She is in the library listening to Kenneth read Cosmos. I wish he’d put me to sleep sometimes, as I am sure he often does his wife.”
“I wish he would!” said Lisa, “and he would oblige others besides myself. Go and ask Kate to come down in the store-room and help me.”
“And what do you want with Kate in the store-room, Miss Lisa?” said Minnie, as she tied the key she held to the string of her bonnet. “There must be something going on that I cannot guess.”
“I want her to make an Italian cream for dinner, while I busy myself with something else that does not concern you.”
“On the principle of ‘Faut être deux pour avoir du plaisir,’ I presume,” said Minnie. “How affecting! But something is in the wind, Lisa, or you would not fuss over creams, etc. Is any one expected to dinner?”
“I give you permission to expect as many persons as you like,” replied she, with provoking gravity. “Tell me their names, and I will prepare the banquet.”
“I never saw such a mysterious old oracle as you are! Getting out more plate, more napkins, and steeping gelatin with so much solemnity, as though we never did have company in our lives before, then preserving such a dark cloud of silence on the subject! Kate! who is coming here to-day—tell me, and don’t be foolish about it?” cried Minnie. “Sister is enveloped in mystery and wont let me know.”
“Kate does not know herself,” said Lisa, smiling; “but may be she can guess.”
“This is Rose’s birth-day,” said Kate, after a pause, “and—”