more enjoyment than I can boast.

"So I have!" I answer; and my sense of the ludicrous overcoming all
other considerations, I begin to giggle with a good-will.

"Let us look at you, Nancy!" says the Brat, taking hold of me by both
arms, and bringing the minute impertinence of his face into close
neighborhood to mine. "I begin to think that there must be more in you
than we have yet discovered! we never looked upon you as one of our most
favorable specimens, did we?"

"Do not you remember old Aunt Williams?" reply I, merrily; "how she used
to say 'I was not pretty, my dears, but I was a pleasant little devil!'
perhaps I am a pleasant little devil!"

"_Poor_--_dear_--old fellow!" says Barbara, in an accent of the
profoundest, delicatest, womanliest pity, "_how_ sorry I am for him!
Nancy, how will you break it to him most kindly? I am afraid he will be
sadly hurt! will you speak to him, or do it by letter?"

Barbara has risen. We are all standing up, more or less; it is
impossible to sit through such news; Barbara's garden-hat is in her
hand. The warm and mellow sun that is making Africa's dreary expanse in
the map on the wall, one broad fine sheet, is enkindling, too, the silk
of her hair, the flower-petals of her cheeks, the blue compassion of her
eyes. My pretty, tall Barbara! Let them say what they like, I am sure
that somewhere--_somewhere_--you are pretty now!

"If you write," says Algy, still laughing, but with more moderation, "I
should advise you to depute me to make a fair copy of the letter; else,
from the extreme ambiguity of your handwriting, he will most likely
mistake your drift, and imagine that you are saying yes."

"How do you know that I am not going to say yes?" I ask, abruptly.

Rivers of additional scarlet are racing to my cheeks, over my
forehead--in among the roots of my hair--all around and about my throat,
but I stand, looking the assembled multitude full in the face, fairly,
well, and boldly.

"Listen!" I continue, holding up my right hand in deprecation, "let me
speak!--do not interrupt me!--Bobby, I know that he was at school with
father--Algy, I know that he is forty-seven--all of you, I know that his
hair is gray, and that there are crows'-feet about his eyes--but
still--but still--"

"Do you mean to say that you are _in love_ with him?" breaks in Bobby,
impressively.

Instances of enamored humanity have been rare in Bobby's experience.
With the exception of Toothless Jack, he ha