The bell rang again, and this time Lieutenant Clarence Herbert entered on tiptoe: not of expectation particularly, but he had a way of tiptoeing which had been the fashion before he went to sea the last time, and which he resumed on his return, without noticing that in the mean time the fashion had gone by, and everybody stood straight and square on his feet. The effect, like all just-gone-by fashions, was to make him look ridiculous; and it required some self-control on our part to do him the justice of remembering that he could be quite brilliant when he pleased, was musical and sentimental. He had a good name, as I sighed in recalling.
We talked on, and on, instinctively keeping near the ground, and hopping from bough to bough of daily facts.
When they were both gone, we rejoiced, and went up-stairs again to our work and our rocking. Laura hummed,—
"'The visit paid, with ecstasy we come,
As from a seven-years' transportation, home,
And there resume the unembarrassed brow,
Recovering what we lost, we know not how,'—
"What is it?—
"'Expression,—and the privilege of thought.'"
"What an idea Louisa Russell always gives one of clothes!" said Laura. "I never remember the least thing she says. I would almost as soon have in the house one of those wire-women they keep in the shops to hang shawls on, for anything she has to say."
"I know it," I answered. "But, to tell the truth, Laura, there was something very interesting about her clothes to me to-day. That scarf! Don't you think, Laura, that an India scarf is always handsome?"
"Always handsome? What! all colors and qualities?"
"Of course not. I mean a handsome one,—like Louisa Russell's."