"Indiscretion is the better part of valor," said she, dropping her head but raising her eyes.
So I sat down with a frivolous smile peculiar to the appreciated.
"Doubtless," said I, "you are hemming a 'kerchief."
"Doubtless I am not," she said; "this is a night-cap for Mr. Halyard."
A mental vision of Halyard in a night-cap, very mad, nearly set me laughing again.
"Like the King of Yvetot, he wears his crown in bed," I said, flippantly.
"The King of Yvetot might have made that remark," she observed, re-threading her needle.
It is unpleasant to be reproved. How large and red and hot a man's ears feel.
To cool them, I strolled out to the porch; and, after a while, the pretty nurse came out, too, and sat down in a chair not far away. She probably regretted her lost opportunity to be flirted with.
"I have so little company—it is a great relief to see somebody from the world," she said. "If you can be agreeable, I wish you would."