"I can play the banjo—"
"I mean for the piano."
"I never saw one till yesterday, so I can't say. But I reckon I could play anything."
Her Southern brogue was hardly more marked than Jack Emory's, but she mispronounced many of her words and dropped the final letters of others: she said "hyah" for "here" and "do'" for "door," and once she had said "done died." Betty determined to give special instructions to the Professor.
Senator Burleigh and Emory dined at the house that evening, and although Harriet was shy, and blushed when either of the men spoke to her the deep and tragic novelty of their respectful admiration finally set her somewhat at her ease, and she talked under her breath to Emory of the pleasurable impression Washington had made on her rural mind. After dinner she went with him to the library, where he showed her his favourite books, and advised her to read them.
"Will you have a cigarette?" he asked. "Betty accuses me of being old-fashioned, but I am modern enough to think that a woman and a cigarette make a charming combination: she looks so companionable."
"I've smoked a pipe," said Harriet, doubtfully; "but I've never tried a cigarette. I reckon I could, though."
He handed her a cigarette, and she smoked with the natural grace which pervaded all her movements. She sank back in the deep chair she had chosen, and puffed out the smoke indolently.
"I am so happy," she said. "I reckoned down there that the world was beautiful somewhere, but I never expected to see it. And it is, it is. Poor old uncle used to say that nothing amounted to much when you got it, but he didn't know, he didn't know. This room is so big, and the light is so soft, and this chair is so lazy, and the fire is so warm—" She looked at Emory with the first impulse of coquetry she had ever experienced; and her eyes were magnificent.
"Are you, too, happy?" she asked softly.