Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/60

52 hasn't she?" said Mrs. Kent with a smile, when the child had gone.

"'All the repose that stamps the caste of Vere de Vere," Anne replied. "A queen might envy Annabel's savoir faire; but a queen should not be blamed for not having it. She could never have Annabel's opportunity for knowing the world."

"Isn't that rather fine in Mr. Stanton?" said Helen.

"Why, you didn't believe that, did you?" cried Anne. "That is one of Annabel's yarns. Next time she will tell you what Mr. Stanton says and what he eats. By the next time she will have forgotten it entirely."

"But the child spoke so earnestly," remonstrated Mrs. Kent.

"The earnestness is always in direct proportion to the size of her fiction," said Anne. "I could almost have believed her if it had not been for the three chairs and the table. Annabel is especially exact when she lies."