a swirl of white dress and blue ribbon and flying brown curls. But this
time the giddy going up and down was in tame silence. There was no
accompanying song to make the game lively. Mrs. Triplett had more to say,
and Mr. Darcy was too deeply interested to sing.

"Look at her now, stopping to read that sign set up on the spot where the
Pilgrims landed. She does that every time she passes it. Says it cheers
her up something wonderful, no matter how downhearted she is, to think
that she wasn't one of the Mayflower passengers, and that she's nearly
three hundred years away from their hardships and that dreadful first
wash-day of theirs. Does seem to me though, that's a poor way to make
yourself cheerful, just thinking of all the hard times you might have had
but didn't."

"_Thing_ it!" lisped Georgina, wanting undivided attention, and
laying an imperious little hand on his cheek to force it. "_Thing_!"

He shook his head reprovingly, with a finger across his lips to remind
her that Mrs. Triplett was still talking; but she was not to be silenced
in such a way. Leaning over until her mischievous brown eyes compelled
him to look at her, she smiled like a dimpled cherub. Georgina's smile
was something irresistible when she wanted her own way.

"_Pleathe!_" she lisped, her face so radiantly sure that no one
could be hardhearted enough to resist the magic appeal of that word, that
he could not disappoint her.

"The little witch!" he exclaimed. "She could wheedle the fish out of the
sea if she'd say please to 'em that way. But how that honey-sweet tone
and the yells she was letting loose awhile back could come out of that