He hesitated, and then
propounded over the balusters to the upper story the direct query--"You
don't happen to have Nellie Wynn up there, do ye?"
There was an interval of inquiry proceeding from half a dozen reluctant
throats, more or less cottony and muffled, in those various degrees of
grievance and mental distress which indicate too early roused young
womanhood. The eventual reply seemed to be affirmative, albeit
accompanied with a suppressed giggle, as if the young lady had just
been discovered as an answer to an amusing conundrum.
"All right," said Wynn, with an apparent accession of boisterous
geniality. "Tell her I must see her, and I've only got a few minutes to
spare. Tell her to slip on anything and come down; there's no one here
but myself, and I've shut the front door on Brother Burnham. Ha, ha!"
and suiting the action to the word, he actually bundled the admiring
Brother Burnham out on his own doorstep. There was a light pattering on
the staircase, and Nellie Wynn, pink with sleep, very tall, very slim,
hastily draped in a white counterpane with a blue border and a general
classic suggestion, slipped into the parlor.
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