Page:The principal girl (IA principalgirl00snai).pdf/47

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

Clara, and Dick and the Babe to make the welkin behave frightfully foolish, over a rather plain-looking girl of twenty-four who had to keep bowing over her broom handle before she could get on with the business of life.

And when at last she was able to get on with the business of life, what do you suppose it was? Why, to sing, of course, "Come with me to Arcadee." What in the world else do you suppose her business in life could be?

A little well-timed assistance from Mr. Lover, which she really didn't require, and away she soared straight up through the middle register, and at the same moment something seemed to go ping, ping, beneath the knitted waistcoat of chocolate worsted of the heir to the barony, standing at the back of Box B by the side of Father.

"Come with me to Arcadee."

Uncle Phil accepted her invitation without the slightest hesitation—we are not so sure as we should like to be about Father—but Nannas Helen and Lucy, and Marge and the rest of 'em, indeed an overwhelming majority of that crowded and representative assembly, went straight to Arcadee with that rather plain young woman who was suffering from a cold in the head.

We call her plain as much out of deference to Mr. G-lsw-rthy, and Mr. H. G. W-lls and Mr. Arnold B-nn-tt as any other reason we can think of. Because in the opinion of the heir to the barony she was al-