“That’s a nice girl, and a fine looking girl,” she murmured, “and very good company for my Bee.  Very good company for her.  Yes, the Bertrams are stylish but not of our set.  My word, not a bit of our set.  Bee, of course, might talk to anybody, but the rest of us—­no, no, I’m the first to see the fitness of things, and the Bertrams don’t belong to us nor we to them.  Bee takes after her father, poor man, but the rest of us, we have no right to know the Bertrams.  Now, do look at that young captain.  Why, he’s making the little Bells laugh themselves into fits.  Dear me, I’d better go out.  These girls don’t know manners, and their heads will be turned by that fine young spark.  They are certain to believe any rubbish he talks to them.”

Mrs. Meadowsweet rose with difficulty, stepped out of the open window, and sailed in her rose-colored satin across the grass.

“Now, what’s up?” she said.  “Fie, fie, Matty, your laugh is for all the world like a hen cackling.”

“He, he!” exclaimed the younger girls.

“Now, there you are off again, and all three of you this time!”

“It’s Captain Bertram, ma’am,” began Matty.

“Captain Bertram!” echoed Alice.

“Bertram,” sighed Sophy.

“He says,” continued Matty, “that we are all alike, and he doesn’t know one from the other, and we are trying to puzzle him.  It is such delicious fun.”

“Delicious fun!” said Alice.

“Fun!” gasped Sophy, through her peals of mirth.

“Now,” continued Alice, “he shall begin again.  He shall go through his catechism.  Here we three stand in a row.  Which is Matty, which is Alice, which is Sophy?”

Captain Bertram pulled his mustache, swept his dark eyes over the little eager palpitating group, and in a languid tone pronounced the wrong one to be Matty.

The cackling rose to a shriek.

“You shall pay a forfeit, you bad man,” said the real Matty.  She shook her little fat finger at him.  “Oh, yes, Mrs. Meadowsweet, he really shall—­he must.  This really is too sweetly delicious,—­fancy his not knowing me from Alice—­I call it ungallant.  Now what shall the forfeit be, Alice and Sophy.  Let’s put our fingers on our lips and think.”

“He shall tell us,” exclaims Alice, “he shall describe at full length his—­”

She looked at her sisters.

“His first battle,” prompted Matty.

“No, no, better than that, better than that—­” came from Sophy’s girlish lips.  “Captain Bertram shall tell us about his—­his first love.”

It may have been rude, but at this remark Captain Bertram not only changed color but turned in a very marked way from the Misses Bell, and devoted himself to his hostess.

He was attacked by a complaint somewhat in vogue in high life—­he had a sudden fit of convenient deafness.  He said a few words in a cold voice to Mrs. Meadowsweet, crushed the little Bells by his icy manner, and took the first opportunity of finding more congenial society.