第38章 XII.(2)

Doesn't that seem pitiful, poppa? I always thought we had work enough for the whole world.""Perhaps these fellows didn't try very hard to find it," said the judge.

"Perhaps," she assented.

"I shouldn't want you to get to thinking that it's all like New York.

Remember how comfortable everybody is in Tuskingum.""Yes," she said, sadly. "How far off Tuskingum seems!""Well, don't forget about it; and remember that wherever life is simplest and purest and kindest, that is the highest civilization.""How much like old times it seems to hear you talk that way, poppa!

I should think I was in the library at home. And I made you leave it!"she sighed.

"Your mother was glad of any excuse. And it will do us all good, if we take it in the right way," said the judge, with a didactic severity that did not hide his pang from her.

"Poor poppa!" she said.

He went away, saying that he was going to look Lottie up. His simple design was to send Lottie to her mother, so that Breckon might come back to Ellen; but he did not own this to himself.

Lottie returned from another direction with Boyne, and Ellen said, "Poppa's gone to look for you.""Has he?" asked Lottie, dropping decisively into her chair. "Well, there's one thing; I won't call him poppa any more.""What will you call him?" Boyne demanded, demurely.

"I'll call him father, it you want to know; and I'm going to call momma, mother. I'm not going to have those English laughing at us, and I won't say papa and mamma. Everybody that knows anything says father and mother now."Boyne kept looking from one sister to another during Lottie's declaration, and, with his eyes on Ellen, he said, "It's true, Ellen.

All the Plumptons did." He was very serious.

Ellen smiled. "I'm too old to change. I'd rather seem queer in Europe than when I get back to Tuskingum.""You wouldn't be queer there a great while," said Lottie. "They'll all be doing it in a week after I get home."Upon the encouragement given him by Ellen, Boyne seized the chance of being of the opposition. "Yes," he taunted Lottie, "and you think they'll say woman and man, for lady and gentleman, I suppose.""They will as soon as they know it's the thing.""Well, I know I won't," said Boyne. "I won't call momma a woman.""It doesn't matter what you do, Boyne dear," his sister serenely assured him.

While he stood searching his mind for a suitable retort, a young man, not apparently many years his senior, came round the corner of the music-room, and put himself conspicuously in view at a distance from the Kentons.

"There he is, now," said Boyne. "He wants to be introduced to Lottie."He referred the question to Ellen, but Lottie answered for her.

"Then why don't you introduce him?"

"Well, I would if he was an American. But you can't tell about these English." He resumed the dignity he had lost in making the explanation to Lottie, and ignored her in turning again to Ellen. "What do you think, Ellen?""Oh, don't know about such things, Boyne," she said, shrinking from the responsibility.

"Well; upon my word!" cried Lottie. "If Ellen can talk by the hour with that precious Mr. Breckon, and stay up here along with him, when everybody else is down below sick, I don't think she can have a great deal to say about a half-grown boy like that being introduced to me.""He's as old as you are," said Boyne, hotly.

"Oh! I saw him associating with you, and I thought he was a boy, too.

Pardon me!" Lottie turned from giving Boyne his coup-de-grace, to plant a little stab in Ellen's breast. "To be sure, now Mr. Breckon has found those friends of his, I suppose he won't want to flirt with Ellen any more.""Ah, ha, ha!" Boyne broke in. "Lottie is mad because he stopped to speak to some ladies he knew. Women, I suppose she'd call them.""Well, I shouldn't call him a gentleman, anyway," said Lottie.

The pretty, smooth-faced, fresh-faced young fellow whom their varying debate had kept in abeyance, looked round at them over his shoulder as he leaned on the rail, and seemed to discover Boyne for the first time. He came promptly towards the Kentons.

"Now," said Lottie, rapidly, "you'll just HAVE to."The young fellow touched his cap to the whole group, but he ventured to address only Boyne.

"Every one seems to be about this morning," he said, with the cheery English-rising infection.

"Yes," answered Boyne, with such snubbing coldness that Ellen's heart was touched.

"It's so pleasant," she said, "after that dark weather.""Isn't it?" cried the young fellow, gratefully. "One doesn't often get such sunshine as this at sea, you know.""My sister, Miss Kenton, Mr. Pogis," Boyne solemnly intervened. "And Miss Lottie Kenton."The pretty boy bowed to each in turn, but he made no pretence of being there to talk with Ellen. "Have you been ill, too?" he actively addressed himself to Lottie.

"No, just mad," she said. "I wasn't very sick, and that made it all the worse being down in a poky state-room when I wanted to walk.""And I suppose you've been making up for lost time this morning?""Not half," said Lottie.

"Oh, do finish the half with me!"

Lottie instantly rose, and flung her sister the wrap she had been holding ready to shed from the moment the young man had come up. "Keep that for me, Nell. Are you good at catching?" she asked him.

"Catching?"

"Yes! People," she explained, and at a sudden twist of the ship she made a clutch at his shoulder.

"Oh! I think I can catch you."

As they moved off together, Boyne said, "Well, upon my word!" but Ellen did not say anything in comment on Lottie. After a while she asked, "Who were the ladies that Mr. Breckon met?""I didn't hear their names. They were somebody he hadn't seen before since the ship started. They looked like a young lady and her mother.

It made Lottie mad when he stopped to speak with them, and she wouldn't wait till he could get through. Ran right away, and made me come, too."