Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/67

Rh "But I am," said Phœbe, who had come up, "George, you are very ungallant to desert me. You have forgotten your promise, moreover." "What promise?"

"There! what promise you say, as if your head were a riddle and everything put in except clots of clay and pebbles fell through. Mehalah has stuck in the wires, and poor little I have been sifted out." "But what did I promise?" "To show me the hull in which you and your mother live, the Pandora I think you call her," "Did I promise?" "Yes, you did, when we were together at the Decoy under the willows. I told you I wished greatly to be introduced to the interior and see how you lived," Turning to Mehalah, "George and I have been to the Decoy. He was most good-natured, and explained the whole contrivance to me, and—and illustrated it. We had a very pleasant little trot together, had we not, George?" "Oh! this is what's-her-name, is it?" said Mehalah in a low tone with an amused look. She was neither angry nor jealous, she despised Phœbe too heartily to be either, though with feminine instinct she perceived what the girl was about, and saw through all her affectation. "If I made the promise, I must of course keep it," said George, "but it is strange I should not remember having made it." "I dare say you forget a great many things that were said and done at the Decoy, but," with a little affected sigh, "I do not, I never shall, I fear."

George De Witt looked uncomfortable and awkward. "Will not another day do as well?" "No, it will not, George," said Phœbe petulantly. "I know you have no engagement, you said so when you volunteered to drive me to Waldegraves." De Witt turned to Mehalah, and said, "Come along with us. Glory! my mother will be glad to see you."

"Oh! don't trouble yourself. Miss Sharland—or Master Sharland, which is it?"—staring first at the short petticoats, and then at the cap and jersey.

"Come, Glory," repeated De Witt, and looked so