A soft little snore came from Miss Madigan. Her head had fallen to one side, and the lamp-light shone on her soft, pretty, high-colored face, placid in its repose as a baby's.
In the moment that Madigan paused and looked at her, Sissy's hand sought Kate's in terror. But the reader controlled himself with an effort, remembering possibly that, after all, it was not his sister but his daughters he was educating.
"'The rock was covered with people,'" he went on, skipping the explanation he had intended giving to Sissy. And he read on for some minutes without interruption, becoming more and more interested himself in the vivid picture as it unrolled, and half declaiming it in his enthusiasm, with a verve that accounted for Sissy's successful rendition of "The Polish Boy" at school entertainments. "'The trumpets sounded,'" he sang out. "'The soldiers, clashing their bucklers with their swords and uttering the war-cry Alala! Alala! advanced in—'"
"Mercy me!" exclaimed Miss Madigan, waked by his realistic shout, and blinking her bright little eyes to accustom them to the light.
"Anne," said Madigan, tensely, "if you are not interested, you—are not obliged to listen, of course. But it would be more—civil to withdraw if—"
"Not interested?" she repeated, with gentle surprise, as she took up her crocheting again. "Why, it's very interesting—most interesting; don't you find it so, Kate?"
"'A man dressed in purple rushed out of the temple with an olive-branch in his hand,'" Madigan began again, all the ardor gone from his voice. "'This was Hasdrubal, the commander-in-chief, and the Robespierre of the Reign of Terror. His—'"
"Missy Kate—want chocolate—picnic—" Wong stood open-mouthed in the doorway. Consciousness of having interrupted the master, as well as amazement at beholding him out of his own room after dinner, was too much for him.
"What do you want, Wong?" demanded Madigan, harshly.
"Notting—oh, notting," murmured Wong, deprecatingly. "One picnic, sabe, t'-malla morning."