head of this house, and I intend to let
her know it. And I've brought her all the way from London in order to
tell it her, too! La! how she did look when I called you George! I might
have called you George--only you had seen that little Theo first, and
liked her best, I suppose."

"Yes, I suppose I like her best," says Mr. George.

"Well, I like you because you tell the truth. Because you was the only
one of 'em in London who didn't seem to care for my money, though I was
downright mad and angry with you once, and with myself too, and with
that little sweetheart of yours, who ain't to be compared to me, I know
she ain't."

"Don't let us make the comparison, then!" I said, laughing.

"I suppose people must lie on their beds as they make 'em," says she,
with a little sigh. "Dare say Miss Theo is very good, and you'll marry
her and go to Virginia, and be as dull as we are here. We were talking
of Miss Lambert, my lord, and I was wishing my cousin joy. How is old
Goody to-day? What a supper she did eat last night, and drink!--drink
like a dragoon! No wonder she has got a headache, and keeps her room.
Guess it takes her ever so long to dress herself."

"You, too, may be feeble when you are old, and require rest and wine to
warm you!" says Mr. Warrington.

"Hope I shan't be like her when I'm old, anyhow!" says the lady. "Can't
see why I am to respect an old woman, because she hobbles on a stick,
and has shaky hands, and false teeth!" And the little heathen sank back
on her couch, and showed twenty-four pearls of her own.

"Law!" she adds, after gazing at both her hearers through the curled
lashes of her brilliant dark eyes. "How frightened you both look! My
lord has already given me ever so many sermons about old Goody. You are
both afraid of her: and I ain't, that's all. Don't look so scared at one
another! I ain't a-going to bite her head off. We shall have a battle,
and I intend to win. How did I serve the Dowager, if you please, and my
Lady Fanny, with their high and mighty airs, when they tried to put
down the Countess of Castlewood in her own house, and laugh at the poor
American girl? We had a fight, and which got the best of it, pray? Me
and Goody will have another, and when it is over, you will see that we
shall both be perfect friends!"

When at this point of our conversation the door opened, and Madame
Beatrix, elaborately dressed according to her wont, actually made her
appearance, I, for my part, am not