Читать книгу Three Bright Girls. A Story of Chance and Mischance онлайн

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"O my stars, hark to that, Miss Denison!" exclaims Dick. "Why, my good Doris, if you marry a duke you will have to go to court, you know; and supposing the queen invited you to dinner, and she took it into her head suddenly to have nothing but Chinese, or—or Fi-ji-an spoken all the time, where would you be then, my girl?"

"Don't be absurd!" retorts Doris loftily; "and do let Miss Denny go on with what she was saying."

But at this moment the gong sounds and there is a general move. A merry and noisy meal is the luncheon to-day; Mr. Merivale, who has come home unexpectedly, being himself one of the merriest of the party.

After much discussion and a few passages-at-arms between Doris, Molly, and Dick, which are promptly suppressed, however, by Miss Denison, a rehearsal is called for half-past six o'clock, after the school-room tea. A note, in a somewhat sprawling masculine hand, is written and despatched by Molly to command the presence of the five Horton boys at that hour; and as the carpenter has pronounced the school-room to be most suitable for the erection of a stage, the time before tea is devoted chiefly to the clearing of all superfluous articles (of which there are not a few) away into cupboards and ottomans, &c. Presently Hugh, Regy, Alick, Ted, and Joey Horton arrive, and hard, steady rehearsal is the order of the evening until bed-time.