"I am sure I should enjoy myself more at home, uncle Orrin. There is very little rational pleasure to be had in these assemblages."
"Rational pleasure!" said he. "Didn't you have any rational pleasure last night?"
"I didn't hear a single word spoken, sir, that was worth listening to,--at least that was spoken to me; and the hollow kind of rattle that one hears from every tongue makes me more tired than anything else, I believe;--I am out of tune with it, somehow."
"Out of tune!" said the old doctor, giving her a look made up of humourous vexation and real sadness,--"I wish I knew the right tuning-key to take hold of you!"
"I become harmonious rapidly, uncle Orrin, when I am in this pleasant little room alone with you."
"That won't do!" said he, shaking his head at the smile with which this was said,--"there is too much tension upon the strings. So that was the reason you were all ready waiting for me last night?--Well, you must tune up, my little piece of discordance, and go with me to Mrs. Thorn's to-morrow night--I won't let you off."
"With you, sir!" said Fleda.
"Yes," he said. "I'll go along and take care of you lest you get drawn into something else you don't like."
"But, dear uncle Orrin, there is another difficulty--it is to be a large party and I have not a dress exactly fit."
"What have you got?" said he with a comic kind of fierceness.