[Pg 42] "Not so much as I'd like to. Puppa would never let anybody stay after ten o'clock, and you don't really get warmed up before ten o'clock." "Why, Veronica Trueman, how you talk!" "Don't speak of how I talk!" said Veronica. "Hasn't that Miss Wilbur got language! I guess Mr. Barrison likes her, too. He told me she was a goddess." "Oh, Phil's just full of fun. He always will be a rapscallion at heart, no matter how great he ever gets to be." "Well, he doesn't want anybody else to stop saying prunes and prisms. He didn't even want me to chew gum. Anybody that's as unnatural as that had better marry a goddess. Now, let's go for those dishes, Aunt Priscilla." "You good child!" said Miss Burridge appreciatively. "I can't really ask Genevieve to stay in the evenin'. She's the little girl who comes every day and prepares vegetables and washes dishes. Now, one minute, Veronica, while I get the names o' these new people straight. I've got their letters here." Miss Priscilla took them down from the chimney-piece. "There's Mrs. Lowell, she's alone, and Miss Emerson, she's alone, and[Pg 43] Mr. Nicholas Gayne and his nephew, Herbert Gayne. I wonder how long I'll remember that." [Pg 43] "I know them all," said Veronica sententiously. "The whole bunch came on in the same car with me from Boston. It's my plan to poison Mr. Gayne." "Don't talk that way, child." "You'll agree to it when you see how mean he is to his nephew. The boy isn't all there." "What do you mean?" "Has rooms to let in the upper story, you know." Veronica touched her round forehead. "Mrs. Lowell is a queen and Miss Emerson isn't; or else Miss Emerson is a queen and Mrs. Lowell isn't. I'll know which is t'other to-morrow." "You seem to have made up your mind about them all." "Oh, yes!" said Veronica. "You don't have to eat a whole jar of butter to find out whether it's good. All I need is a three-minute taste of anybody, and I had three hours and a half of them. Now, come on, Aunt Priscilla, let's put some transparent water
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