"Winnie is in the plot and has special care of them. Jim thinks there never was quite so jolly a girl as Winnie. They are discussing the cabinet now. Mrs. Armstrong thinks that some one of us may be a somnambulist and have hidden the things in our sleep."
"What a strategic little girl you are, Milly! What made you think of this opportunity for Professor Waite?"
"Oh! that was the way Stacey found his chance, you know. Speak of angels----How nice of you, Stacey, to bring me that salad. I am positively dying for something to eat. Wasn't the Bishop too longsome for anything? I thought I should expire, and I was wild to get across the stage at Winnie, whose back hair was coming down. No, I shall not tell you what we were saying about you. Do get me some chicken salad. I can't endure lobster;" and as the obedient Stacey ambled briskly away, Milly confided to me: "Do you know, Tib, Adelaide is beginning to care for Professor Waite? What makes me think so? Oh, I know the symptoms. She was packing so late last night that I nearly fell asleep, but not quite, for just as I was dozing off I saw her drop on her knees before her trunk with her face in a great white handkerchief, and while I was wondering where she ever got such a great sheet of a thing, it suddenly dawned upon me that it was the silk muffler which Professor Waite wrapped around her burned hands the night of our Halloween scrape. Suddenly it seemed to occur to her that I might be looking, and she turned to look at me, but I had my eyes shut and was snoring like an angel. Of course angels snore, Stacey Fitz Simmons. Did you ever catch an angel asleep? and if not what right have you to make fun of me? Dear me, there is the Bishop starting to go upstairs, and they don't need him a bit--as yet."
Milly darted across the room, planted herself squarely in the Bishop's way, and exerted her powers of entertainment to such effect that Stacey became blindly jealous, though Buttertub had not come with his father, apparently having had quite enough of Madame's young ladies and their entertainments.
And meantime, how was Professor Waite thriving with his wooing? Adelaide told me long afterward, so long that it was too late for any word of mine to set all right, and filled my heart with pity, not alone for the Professor, but, alas! for Adelaide also.