Even then, however, Effie had no sooner disappeared than Mrs. Dryer kindly apologized for her.
“Young and giddy,” she said, “and so thoughtless, just like her poor mother, the doctor’s second, you know. She frequently loses control of her risible faculties.”
“Poor thing!” remarked one of the ladies. “But what a very sweet face she has, and such a dear, pleasant way of laughing! You must find her quite a treasure.”
“Yes, indeed,” said another. “Girls will be girls. Mine are all so fond of Effie.”
The doctor seemed to find it difficult to reproduce the subject of Zeb Fuller’s enormity, but that was nothing to the effort it cost his wife to smile and look sweet while her visitors were praising her stepdaughter.
It is to be feared that Effie’s tea-time was a troubled one, but there were reasons why she was in no danger of unendurable severity just then, if she was as yet “under age” and capable of seeing the funny side of things.
After tea, the doctor had a brief call to make at Deacon Fuller’s, from which he returned with a serene assurance that the young assailant of his dignity was not to escape without just and ample retribution, for he had seen, with his own eyes, the stern and exemplary father proceeding to the orchard for the necessary appliances.
“That will do,” muttered the doctor, as he turned his steps once more homeward, “only I think hickory would be better in a case of this magnitude.”
What would have been his feelings if he had witnessed the ignominious after-fate of even the “sprouts” he deemed so inadequate to the occasion?
But, then, Zeb Fuller was just as well satisfied.