you'll
come to pig-tails yet and be thankful for them, or I miss my guess."

"Never!"

Imogen remembered her promise. She was studiously polite and grateful
that evening, and exerted herself to talk and undo the unpleasant
impression of the morning. The little party round the dinner-table waxed
merry, especially when Imogen, under the effect of her gracious
resolves, attempted to adapt her conversation to her company and gratify
her hosts by using American expressions.

"People absquatulate from St. Helen's toward autumn, don't they?" she
remarked. Then when some one laughed she added, "You say 'absquatulate'
over here, don't you?"

"Well, I don't know. I never did hear any one say it except as a joke,"
replied Elsie.

And again: "Mother would be astonished, Lion, wouldn't she, if she knew
that a Chinese can make English puddings as well as the cooks at home.
She'd be all struck of a heap."

And later: "It really was dreadful. The train was broken all to bits,
and nearly every one on board was hurt,--catawampously chawed up in
fact, as you Americans would say. Why, what are you all laughing at?
Don't you say it?"

"Never, except in the comic newspapers and dime novels," said Geoffrey
Templestowe when he recovered from his amusement, while Lionel, utterly
overcome with his sister's vocabulary, choked and strangled, and finally
found voice to say,--

"Go on, Moggy. You're doing beautifully. Nothing like acquiring the
native dialect to make a favorable impression in a new country. Oh,
wherever _did_ she learn 'catawampus'? I shall die of it."

CHAPTER VI.

UNEXPECTED.

IMOGEN'S race-prejudices experienced a weakening after Lionel's return
from St. Helen's with the only "slavey" attainable, in the shape of an
untidy, middle-aged Irish woman, with red hair, and a hot little spark
of temper glowing in either eye. Putting this unpromising female in
possession of the fresh, clean kitchen of the cabin was a trial, but it
had to be done; and the young mistress, with all the ardor of
inexperience, bent herself to the task of reformation and improvement,
and teaching Katty Maloney--who was old enough to be her mother--a great
many desirable things which she herself did not very well understand. It
was thankless work and resulted as such experiments usually do. Katty
gave warning at the end of a week, affirming that she wasn't going to
be hectored and driven round by a bit of a miss, who didn't well know
wha