Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/61

 Aurora emerged from her cabin, radiantly, smilingly emerged. Fussy assistants draped her properly on the divan, and covered one of her pretty feet. The other pretty foot was left accidently and artistically visible, with a sufficient visibility above it to indicate what the other ankle and stocking were like. The Signorina affected purples and lavenders this morning—a purple deck-bonnet—of puritan primness, such as Priscilla might have worn to keep the wind from tossing her hair—leaving those long lavender streamers for the wind to play with.

"Sit here, Carissima," she said to Miss Stanton, drawing the girl beside her.

Miss Stanton wore no purples, lavenders or jewels—just a simple skirt and waist; her firm round forearms were bare of bracelets and her fingers devoid of rings. She had brushed her hair in soft curves from her forehead, and it billowed around her head. Perhaps the Signorina had thought of the foil that this gentle Southerner would make for her own voluptuous magnificence, and Miss Stanton lost nothing by the contrast.

Aurora's confident eyes turned to the happy brown ones, "Come now, Carissima, we shall talk about your benefit—what will you play?" Miss Stanton astounded the Signorina by her familiarity with the world's great music. "Very well, you