“But, Alice, it’s a most outrageous—”
“Never mind,—listen!”
Meantime, we had lost a few sentences of the colloquy, which seemed to be affording intense amusement to the Stranger.
“But what did she say?” were the first words we caught.
“She said,” began the little thing, gesticulating with her hands and rolling her eyes,—speaking, in fact, with her whole body,—“sister Lucy, she said—”
“Well.”
“Sister Lucy, she said Mr. Whacker was mighty fat, but he was right pretty.”
Imagine the scene behind the curtains! The trouble was that Lucy, who was as truthful as Epaminondas, could not deny having paid me, in substance, this two-edged compliment. So she could only bury her face in her hands. As for the Stranger, he actually laughed aloud.
“But do ladies always love pretty men?”
“Why, yes; I love my sweetheart, and he is pretty.”