Page:An Old Fashioned Girl.djvu/132

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116
An Old-Fashioned Girl

"We young folks quite lost our heads that night, and I haven't a very clear idea of how I got home. The last thing I remember was hanging out of the window with a flock of girls, watching the carriage roll away, while the crowd cheered as if they were mad.

"Bless my heart, it seems as if I heard 'em now! 'Hurrah for Lafayette and Mayor Quincy! Hurrah for Madam Hancock and the pretty girls! Hurrah for Col. May!' 'Three cheers for Boston! Now, then! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!'

And here the old lady stopped, out of breath, with her cap askew, her spectacles on the end of her nose, and her knitting much the worse for being waved enthusiastically in the air, while she hung over the arm of her chair, shrilly cheering an imaginary Lafayette.

The girls clapped their hands, and Tom hurrahed with all his might, saying, when he got his breath,

"Lafayette was a regular old trump; I always liked him."

"My dear! what a disrespectful way to speak of that great man," said grandma, shocked at Young America's irreverence.

"Well, he was a trump, any way, so why not call him one?" asked Tom, feeling that the objectionable word was all that could be desired.

"What queer gloves you wore then," interrupted Fanny, who had been trying on the much-honored glove, and finding it a tight fit.

"Much better and cheaper than we have now," returned grandma, ready to defend "the good old times" against every insinuation. "You are an extravagant set now-a-days, and I really don't know