Kendal, and then walked out of the room.
'How disobliging!' said Lucy. 'Well then, Sophy, you must make your
old hat look as well as you can, for I suppose it will not quite do
to go without anyone.'
Sophy, like her brother, looked at Mrs. Kendal, and with an eye of
indignant appeal and entreaty, while Albinia's countenance was so
full of displeasure, that Lucy continued earnestly, 'O, mamma, you
can't object. You used to go out riding with papa when he was at
Colonel Bury's.'
'Well, Lucy!' exclaimed her sister, 'I did not think even you capable
of such a comparison.'
'It's all the same,' said Lucy tartly, blushing a good deal.
Sophy leapt up to look at her, and Albinia trying to be calm and
judicious, demanded, 'What is the same as what?'
'Why, Algernon and _me_,' was the equally precise reply.
In stately horror, Sophy rose and seriously marched away, leaving, by
her look and manner, a species of awe upon both parties, and some
seconds passed ere, with crimson blushes, Albania ventured to invite
the dreaded admission, by demanding, 'Now, Lucy, will you be so good
as to tell me the meaning of this extraordinary allusion?'
'Why, to be sure--I know it was very different. Papa was so old, and
_there were us_,' faltered Lucy, 'but I meant, you would know how it
all is--how those things--'
'Stop, Lucy, am I to understand by those things, that you wish me to
believe you and Mr.
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