Vandeusen turning
calmly on his heel to survey the distant lawns through his monocle, "a
beggar, don't you know--well, it isn't the pleasantest thing in the world
to be called that, don't you know?"
"Particularly when one isn't a beggar," said a young lady hotly. Then she
turned to Joel and laid a hand on his arm. "Don't you mind it," she said.
"And as for you, Miss Tresor, I should consider it wiser for you to be
silent." Mrs. Chatterton turned on her with venom. "What do you know about
these miserable Peppers that infest my cousin's house, pray tell?"
"I like them," declared Miss Tresor decidedly, not turning her head. "Don't
mind it, my lad."
"I don't, now," said Joel. Then the gentlemen laughed again.
"Oh, I must go." All his long neglect of his letter-carrier duties, made so
much worse by this delay, now surged over him. He raised his chubby face,
over which a smile ran, and bounded off.
"Isn't he a dear!" exclaimed Miss Tresor impulsively.
"Come away, Emily," begged another young lady, seizing Miss Tresor's arm,
"the old cat is quite furious; just look at her face."
"We'll leave her to mamma's tender mercies," said Emily carelessly, "she
knows how to handle her. Do you remember that scene, Elinor, at Geneva?"
"Don't I!" laughed Elinor, as they sauntered off.
Well, by the time that six o'clock came, there wasn't so much as a scrap of
a letter left in Jasper's post office, but, instead, a box crammed full of
silver pieces and banknotes.
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