But perhaps she
did not intend to forbid her teasing. It gave a pleasant
sort of reality to the affair that was in her mind,
and made what she wished appear not only possible but probable.
Lapham got up and lounged about, fretting and rebelling
as each boat departed without him, through the day;
before night he became very cross, in spite of the efforts
of the family to soothe him, and grumbled that he had been
kept from going up to town. "I might as well have gone
as not," he repeated, till his wife lost her patience.
"Well, you shall go to-morrow, Silas, if you have to be
carried to the boat."
"I declare," said Penelope, "the Colonel don't pet worth
a cent."
The six o'clock boat brought Corey. The girls were
sitting on the piazza, and Irene saw him first.
"O Pen!" she whispered, with her heart in her face;
and Penelope had no time for mockery before he was at
the steps.
"I hope Colonel Lapham isn't ill," he said, and they
could hear their mother engaged in a moral contest
with their father indoors.
"Go and put on your coat! I say you shall! It don't matter
HOW he sees you at the office, shirt-sleeves or not.
You're in a gentleman's house now--or you ought to be--and
you shan't see company in your dressing-gown."
Penelope hurried in to subdue her mother's anger.
"Oh, he's very much better, thank you!" said Irene,
speaking up loudly to drown the noise of the controversy.
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