"Home is the best place, Madam," declared old Mr. Selwyn emphatically.
"Well, Old England is our home, and nothing will induce me to leave it
again, I can assure you."
Again Mrs. Vanderburgh did not reply, but looked him up and down in
cold silence. Old Mr. Selwyn, not appearing to notice, chattered on. At
last she deliberately turned her back on him.
"Isn't he common and horrid?" whispered Fanny Vanderburgh, in the
steamer chair next to Polly, thrusting her face in between her and her
book. And she gave a little giggle.
"Hush!" said Polly, warningly, "he will hear you."
"Nonsense--it's impossible; he is rattling on so; and do look at
Mamma's face!"
He didn't hear, but Tom did; and he flashed a glance--dark and
wrathful--over at the two girls, and started forward, abruptly pulling
his Grandfather along.
"O dear me!" exclaimed Polly, in distress, dropping her book in her
lap; "now he _has_ heard."
"Oh, that dreadful boy," said Fanny, carelessly, stretching out in her
steamer chair comfortably; "well, who cares? he's worse than his
Grandfather."
"Yes, he has heard," repeated Polly, sorrowfully looking after the two,
Tom still propelling the old gentleman along the deck at a lively rate;
"now, what shall we do?"
"It isn't of the least consequence if he has heard," reiterated Fanny,
"and Mamma has been frightfully bored, I know. Do tell us, Mamma," she
called.
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