"I'm very sorry you can't stay."

My hopes fell like bricks and vanished like bubbles.

The Dunkelbergs left us with pleasant words. They had asked me to shake
hands with Sally, but I had clung to my aunt's cloak and firmly refused
to make any advances. Slowly and without a word we walked across the
park toward the tavern sheds. Hot tears were flowing down my
cheeks--silent tears! for I did not wish to explain them. Furtively I
brushed them away with my hand. The odor of frying beef steak came out
of the open doors of the tavern. It was more than I could stand. I
hadn't tasted fresh meat since Uncle Peabody had killed a deer in
midsummer. He gave me a look of understanding, but said nothing for a
minute. Then he proposed:

"Mebbe we better git dinner here?"

Aunt Deel hesitated at the edge of the stable yard, surrounded as she
was by the aroma of the fleshpots, then:

"I guess we better go right home and save our money, Peabody--ayes!"
said she. "We told Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg that we was goin' home
and they'd think we was liars."

"We orto have gone with `em," said Uncle Peabody as he unhitched the
horses.

"Well, Peabody Baynes, they didn't appear to be very anxious to have
us," Aunt Deel answered with a sigh.