"Silence!" said Letitia. "I am ashamed."
Colonel Shears coolly surveyed the array of impudent youths before him, or perhaps not so much surveyed it as turned upon it, slowly and from side to side, the calm defiance of his massive jowls. He was well content with that splendid mug of his, which he carried habitually at an angle and elevation well calculated to spread dismay. Upon occasion he could render it the more remarkable by a firm compression of the under-lip, pulled gravely down at the corners into what old Butters used to say was a plain attempt "to out-Daniel Webster." The resemblance ended, however, in the regions before described. His brow, it should be stated, did not attest the majesty below them, nor did his small eyes glower with any brooding, owl-like light of wisdom, as he supposed, but bulged rather with a kind of fierce bravado, as if perpetually he were saying to the world:
"Did I hear a snicker?"
Colonel Shears surveyed the school, and then, more slowly, the pictures on the walls about him, turning sharply and fixing his gaze upon Letitia.
[Point One: She was clearly ill at ease.]
[Point Two: A guilty flush had overspread her features.]
"These pictures—" said Colonel Shears, with a wave of his hand in their direction. "Who—if I may be so bold"—and here he raised his voice to the insinuating higher register—"who, may I inquire, paid for them?"
"I did, Mr. Shears," Letitia answered.
"A-ah! You paid for them?"