“Oh, I’ll tell you,” promptly began Alice. “Mary, who is, you know, of a very romant—”
“Suppose, Miss Chatterbox, you will be so good,” interrupted her mother, “as to let Mary speak for herself.”
“’Tis ever thus,” sighed Alice, pouting, “never allowed to open my poor little mouth!”
“I give you permission now,” said Mary. “Tell Mr. Whacker, if you know, what I think of the Don.”
“The who?”
“The Don; that’s what we call him.”
“What! is he a Spaniard?”
“Not at all. You must know, we put Laura up to asking him his name, and she brought back the drollest one imaginable,—‘Don Miff.’ Think of it! But of course Laura got it all wrong; that could not be any human being’s name,—of course not.”
“The Don part of it,” broke in Alice, “has confirmed Mary in her previously entertained opinion that he was a nobleman of some sort travelling incog.; it would be so novelly, you know; though what good it could do her I cannot conceive, even were it so, for it was I who ‘sighted’ him first; it was I to whom he first offered his hand; mark that! it was I who first fell in love with him; and I wish it distinctly understood that as against the present company”—and she made a sweeping courtesy—“he—is—MINE!”
“I waive all my rights,” said I.