My Casindana come
home!" she murmured, with a smile and a tremble of the lips, and a
far-away look, for the instant, in her gentle eyes.
In fact, the whole Keeler family received me with outstretched arms. If I
had been a long-lost child, or a friend known and loved in days gone by,
I could not have been more cordially and enthusiastically welcomed.
The best chair was set for me; glances of eager and inquiring interest
were bent upon me.
I accepted it all coolly, though not without a certain air of affability,
too, for I had a natural desire to make myself agreeable to people, when
it wasn't too much trouble; but I was quite firm, at this time, in the
conviction that there was little or no faith to be put in human nature.
On the whole I was much entertained and interested.
The two children came to climb into my lap, but this part of the
acquaintance did not progress very fast. I thought they must have been
struck by something in my eye (I was merely wondering abstractedly if
their heads were not out of proportion to the rest of their bodies), for
they paused, and Mrs. Philander called them away sharply.
Mrs. Philander was a frail little woman,--she could not have been over
thirty or thirty-two years old,--not pretty, though she had a very airy
and graceful way of comporting herself.
Pages:
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44