Clayton had the rare faculty of taking in every available point of observation, without appearing to stare.
"'Pon my word, Nina," said Mr. Carson, coming towards her with a most delighted air, "you look as if you had fallen out of a rainbow!"
Nina turned away very coolly, and began arranging her music.
"Oh, that's right!" said Carson; "give us one of your songs. Sing something from the Favorita. You know it's my favorite opera," said he, assuming a most sentimental expression.
"Oh, I'm entirely out of practice—I don't sing at all. I'm sick of all those opera-songs!" And Nina skimmed across the floor, and out of the open door by which Clayton was lounging, and began busying herself amid the flowers that wreathed the porch. In a moment Carson was at her heels; for he was one of those persons who seem to think it a duty never to allow any one to be quiet, if they can possibly prevent it.
"Have you ever studied the language of flowers, Nina?" said he.
"No, I don't like to study languages."
"You know the signification of a full-blown rose?" said he, tenderly presenting her with one.
Nina took the rose, coloring with vexation, and then, plucking from the bush a rose of two or three days' bloom, whose leaves were falling out, she handed it to him, and said,—