be quiet, if you want to hear?" She lifts her voice to its highest
pitch, with a pause for distinctness between the words: "I'm heart-
broken for--Ponkwasset. The dryads--of the--birch woods. The
nymphs--and the great--god--Pan--in the reeds--by the river. And
all--that--sort of--thing!"

MISS SPAULDING: "You know very well you're not."

MISS REED: "I'm not? What's the reason I'm not? Then, what am I
heart-broken for?"

MISS SPAULDING: "You're not heart-broken at all. You know very well
that he'll call before we've been here twenty-four hours."

MISS REED: "Who?"

MISS SPAULDING: "The great god Pan."

MISS REED: "Oh, how cruel you are, to mock me so! Come in here, and
sympathize a little! Do, Nettie."

MISS SPAULDING: "No; you come out here and utilize a little. I'm
acting for your best good, as they say at Ponkwasset."

MISS REED: "When they want to be disagreeable!"

MISS SPAULDING: "If this room isn't in order by the time he calls,
you'll be everlastingly disgraced."

MISS REED: "I'm that now. I can't be more so--there's that comfort.