Mr. Erveng was out, for which Phil and I weren't sorry; but Hilliard
met us in the hall and took us upstairs to his mother's sitting-room,
where she was lying in an invalid's chair with a white shawl round her
shoulders. She's very pretty,--Hilliard isn't a bit like her,--but she
looks very delicate and fragile; why, her hands are like _mites_, and
she's very, _very_ gentle, and speaks in a low voice. She welcomed us
very cordially, and said she thought it was so kind of us to come,--here
I thought of our remarks at home, and didn't dare look at Phil and
Fee,--and she and Nora seemed to get on nicely.
[Illustration: "HILLIARD SHOWING HIS MICROSCOPE AND HIS 'SPECIMENS.'"]
Very soon Hilliard carried the boys off to show them his microscope and
his "specimens," and what he called his home-gymnasium. I should have
loved dearly to go, too, but nobody asked me; so there I had to sit
primly on a chair and listen while Mrs. Erveng and Nora talked of books
and pictures and music and all sorts of things. And while they talked I
looked around the room; Nora said afterward that I stared at everything,
until she was ashamed,--but what else was there for me to do? And it was
such a pretty room! furnished in light blue, with touches of yellow here
and there; some lovely pictures hung on the walls, a graceful bronze
Mercury stood on a pedestal between the curtains of one of the windows,
growing plants were scattered about, and everywhere were books and
flowers.
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