"'Twas so real," murmurs Hortense, biting her lip.

After that she sat still enough. Then the steel was exchanged for
cards; and when I lost too steadily M. Picot broke out: "Pish, boy,
your luck fails here! Hillary, child, go practise thy songs on the
spinet."

Or: "Hortense, go mull us a smack o' wine!"

Or: "Ha, ha, little witch! Up yet? Late hours make old ladies."

And Hortense must go off, so that I never saw her alone but once.
'Twas the night before I was to leave for the trade.

The blackamoor appeared to say that Deliverance Dobbins was "a-goin' in
fits" on the dispensary floor.

"Faith, doctor," said I, "she used to have dumps on our turnstile."

"Yes," laughed Hortense, "small wonder she had dumps on that turnstile!
Ramsay used to tilt her backward."

M. Picot hastened away, laughing. Hortense was in a great carved
high-back chair with clumsy, wooden cupids floundering all about the
tall head-rest. Her face was alight in soft-hued crimson flaming from
an Arabian cresset stuck in sockets against the Flemish cabinet.

"A child's trick," began Hortense, catching at the shafts of light.

"I often think of those old days on the beach."