taking us all in! Really, Nancy, for a beginner, you did not do it
badly!"

"It is _not_ a hoax!" cry I, scornfully, standing scarlet and deeply
ashamed, facing them all; "it is real, plain, downright, simple truth."

Another pause. No sound but the monotonous, unemotional clock, and the
woodpecker's fluty laugh from the orchard.

"And so you _really_ have a lover at last, Nancy?" says Algy, the
corners of his mouth beginning to twitch in a way which looks badly for
the keeping of his oath.

"Yes!" say I, beginning to laugh violently, but quite uncomfortably;
"are you surprised? you know I always told you that if you half shut
your eyes, and looked at me from a great way off, I really was not so
bad-looking."

"You have distanced the Begums!" cries the young fellow, joining in my
mirth, but with a good deal more enjoyment than I can boast.

"So I have!" I answer; and my sense of the ludicrous overcoming all
other considerations, I begin to giggle with a good-will.

"Let us look at you, Nancy!" says the Brat, taking hold of me by both
arms, and bringing the minute impertinence of his face into close
neighborhood to mine. "I begin to think that there must be more in you
than we have yet discovered! we never looked upon you as one of our most
favorable specimens, did we?"