restraint, a sort of wet blanket on all our fun, for one must be
polite, you know, in one's own house."

"I am under no special obligation to be polite," laughed Lottie.
"Mark my words. I will shock your pious and proper cousin till he
is ready to write a book on total depravity. It will be good sport
till I am tired of it."

"No, Lottie, you shall not give such a false impression of yourself,
even in a joke," said Bel. "I will tell him, if he can't see, that
you are not a sinner above all in Galilee."

"No, my matter-of-fact cousin, you shall not tell him anything.
Why should I care what he thinks? Already in fancy I see his face
elongate, and his eyes dilate, in holy horror at my wickedness. If
there is one thing I love to do more than another, it is to shock
your eminently good and proper people."

"Why, Miss Lottie," chuckled De Forrest, "to hear you talk, one
would think you were past praying for."

"No, not till I am married."

"In that sense I am always at my devotions."

"Perhaps you had better read the fable of the Frogs and King Stork."

"Thank you. I had never dared to hope that you regarded me as good
enough to eat."