as exasperating; especially as Cousin E. E.
kept laughing.

"That is as much as to say you don't think I'm good-looking enough to be
afraid of," says I, feeling as if a cold frost was creeping over my
face. "Thank you."

Cousin E. E. started up from her lounge, which is a cushioned bench
rounded off at one end, and a high-backed easy-chair at the other; and
says she:

"I didn't mean that, cousin; there is no one for whom I have so much
respect. It was on account of your high religious principle and
beautiful morality that I was so willing to trust you with my husband."

"With papa. The idea!" chimed in that child, giving her head a toss.
"They'll think it's his mother."

"My daughter!" shrieked E. E., holding up both her hands, and falling
back into the scoop of her couch.

"Oh, let her speak!" says I, feeling the goose pimples a-creeping up my
arms. "I'm used to forward children. In our parts they slap them with a
slipper, if nothing else is handy."

"A slipper; the idea!" snapped that child.

I didn't seem to mind her, but went on talking to her mother.

"But here, in York, the most careful mothers wear button boots, and keep
special help to put them on and off, so the poor little wretches have no
check on their impudence."

"Mamma," snapped the creature, "I won't stand this; I won't stay in the
same room with that hateful old maid. I hope she will go to Washington
and be smashed up in ten thousand railroads. That's the idea!"

With this the spiteful thing walked out of the room with her head thrown
back, and her nose in the air.

"Let her go," says E. E., sinking back on her couch as red as fire. "The
child has got her share of the old Frost temper. Now let us talk about
Washington. Do you mean to go _incog._?"

"Incog! Oh, no," says I, beginning to cool down. "We mean to go in the
railroad cars."

Another glow of fun came into Cousin E. E.'s eyes--she really is a
good-natured creature; some people might have got mad about what I said
to that child, but she didn't seem to care, for the laugh all came back
to her eyes.

"Of course," says she, "but do you mean to go in your own character?"

"Why," says I, "don't people take their characters with them when they
go to Washington?"

"They sometimes leave them there," says she, laughing, "but this is what
I mean; if I were you I'd take this trip quietly, and look about a
little without letting people know how great a genius they had among
them. By an