“I think I shall have to leave that as a riddle to be worked out at our leisure.”
“Oh, the terrible infant! What did you say? what could you say?”
“I scarcely know what I did or did not say. He spoke first, saying something about the originality of Laura’s mode of introducing people, and I made some confused, meaningless reply, and then, after we had exchanged a few commonplaces—”
“Miss Lucy!” broke in a voice; and, looking up, we saw, thrust in at the partly-open parlor-door, the face of Molly, the nurse. “Miss Lucy, won’t you please, ma’am, step here a minute?”
The broad grin on her face excited curiosity, while it allayed alarm.
“Why, what’s the matter, Molly?”
“Dat gent’mun say—” And Molly was straightway overcome by an acute attack of the giggles.
“What?”
“Dat ’ere gent’mun he axed me to ax de lady o’ de house ef he mought’n take Laura round to Pizzini’s for some ice-cream.”[[1]]
This was before the days of the Charley Ross horror; but the proposition threw all the young ladies into a ferment, and ejaculation followed ejaculation in rapid succession. At last Alice rose, flew up-stairs, and presently returned with her mother.