She applauded herself much more for keeping back her knowledge till
it was wanted, than for having it; but this self-satisfaction looked
out in another loop-hole. She avoided pedantry, but she was too much
elated not to let her spirits get the better of her; and when Lady de
la Poer and the elder girls came up, they found her in a suppressed
state of capering, more like a puppy on its hind logs, than like a
countess or any other well-bred child.
The party met under the screen of kings and queens, and there had
some dinner, at one of the marble tables that just held them
pleasantly. The cold chicken and tongue were wonderfully good on
that hot hungry day, and still better were the strawberries that
succeeded them; and oh! what mirth went on all the time! Kate was
chattering fastest of all, and loudest--not to say the most
nonsensically. It was not nice nonsense--that was the worst of it--
it was pert and saucy. It was rather the family habit to laugh at
Mary de la Poer for ways that were thought a little fanciful; and
Kate caught this up, and bantered without discretion, in a way not
becoming towards anybody, especially one some years her elder. Mary
was good-humoured, but evidently did not like being asked if she had
stayed in the mediaeval court, because she was afraid the great bulls
of Nineveh would run at her with their five legs.
"She will be afraid of being teazed by a little goose another time,"
said Lord de la Poer, intending to give his little friend a hint that
she was making herself very silly; but Kate took it quite another
way, and not a pretty one, for she answered, "Dear me, Mary, can't
you say bo to a goose!"
"Say what?" cried Adelaide, who was always apt to be a good deal
excited by Kate; and who had been going off into fits of laughter at
all these foolish sallies.
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