human
When you have got through with your lessons, I have something to tell you,
gpt
Very well, then, said Patty, indulgently,--for she was dying to tell her news,--
human
Papa has just asked me to say to you that he is--is--going to be married to a lady in New Bedford.
gpt
Married! cried Agnes, with wide-open eyes.
human
How funny! I thought only people who are young got married. Can we go to the wedding, do you suppose, Patty?
gpt
Oh, perhaps we shall be bridesmaids! I'd like that,
human
And have black cake in little white boxes, just as many as we want. Goody!
gpt
Oh, children, how can you talk so? cried Patty, all her half-formed resolutions of keeping silence and not letting the others know how she felt about it flying to the winds.
human
Do you really want a stepmother to come in and scold and interfere and spoil all our comfort? Do you want some one else to tell you what to do, and make you mind, instead of me? You're too little to know about such things, but I know what stepmothers are. I read about them in a book once, and they're dreadful creatures, and always hate the children, and try to make their Papas hate them too. It will be awful to have one, I think.
gpt
Why does Papa want to marry her, if she's so horrid?
human
I'll never love her!
gpt
And I'll set my wooden dog on her!
human
Oh, Hal, protested Patty, alarmed at the effect of her own injudicious explosion,
gpt
I don't know what you mean exactly, but I'm not going to be it, anyway,