Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/229

 her eyes beyond a mere perception of its lines; but whether this were the longing passion of an awakened soul or the simple awe of the unenlightened was not to be ascertained at the moment.

Testimony as to her enjoyment of the President's paper was more circumstantial. In the midst of this, as the listeners were besought to "dwell a moment on this exquisite delineation of Nature,"—expertly pronounced "Nate-your" by Mrs. Potts, Miss Caroline turned her head aside as one deeply moved by the poet's magic. But Marcella Eubanks, glancing at that moment into a mirror on the opposite wall,—a mirror in a plush frame on which pansies had been painted,—caught the full and frank exposure of a yawn. It was a thorough yawn. Miss Caroline had surrendered abjectly to it, in the belief—unrecking the mirror—that she could not be detected.

The discussion that followed the paper—as was customary at the meetings—proved to be a bit livelier. Each lady said something she had thought up to say, beginning, "Does it not seem—" or "Are we not forced to conclude—"

I suspect that Miss Caroline was sleepy. Perhaps she was nettled by the boredom she had been made to endure without just provocation; perhaps the fashionable fumes of varnish had been toxic to her unaccustomed senses. At any rate she now compromised herself regrettably.

Mrs. Westley Keyts had been thinking up something to say, something choice that should yet be