"At their devotions," added the cynical voice of the gentleman at the piano, who was no other than Mr. Goulden, Laura's admirer.
Zell's attendant threw himself in the attitude of a suppliant and said deprecatingly:
"Nay, but we are astronomers."
"That's a fib, and not a very white one either," she retorted. "I don't believe you ever look toward heaven for anything."
"What need of looking thither for heavenly bodies?" he replied in a low, meaning tone, regarding with undisguised admiration her glowing cheeks. "Moreover, I don't like telescopic distances," he continued, with a half-made motion to put his arm around her waist.
"Come," she said, pirouetting out of his reach, "remember I am no longer a child, I am seventeen to-day."
"Would that you might never be a day older in appearance and feelings!"
"Are you willing to leave me so far behind?" she asked with some maliciousness.
"No, but you would make me a boy again. If old Ponce de Leon had met a
Miss Zell, he would soon have forsaken the swamps and alligators of
Florida." "Oh, what a watery, scaly compliment! Preferred to swamps
and alligators! Who would have believed it?"
"I am not blind to your pretty, wilful blindness. You know I likened you to something too divine and precious to be found on earth."