"Well, of course, Lil, we don't expect to launch out, like Dinah, in 'gorgeous array.'"
"No, but we don't want to look like Southern paupers."
"As we are," said I, laughing.
"No matter: we must put the best foot foremost," said Lil, looking very pretty and pale and earnest as the salt wind blew back her hair: "our new silks, with some of Aunt Nanny's old lace, will do very well, but how I wish we had some jewelry!"
"Oh, I don't care for that," said I.
"Good enough reason: you are younger than I am, and don't need it." (One would have thought Lilly thirty years old.) "But I should look like a different being with earrings. I must have a pair."
"The only question is how to get them," said I prosaically, for I'm always acting as a drag on Lilly's wheels.
"True," she said with a tragic air. "Dear me! I'm tempted to duck my head under the water, and let it stay there, when I think of all the troubles of life."
"'You would be a mermaid fair,
Sitting alone, sitting alone,'
and all strung round with corals and pearls. But I'd rather be Stella Tresvant on her way to New Orleans—and breakfast."