There were photographs everywhere--photographs framed and
unframed; photographs large and photographs small, the fresh and
the faded; tintypes, kodaks, "full lengths," "cabinets,"
groups--every kind of photograph; and among them were several of
Cora herself, one of her mother, one of Laura, and two others of
girls. All the rest were sterner. Two or three were seamed across
with cracks, hastily recalled sentences to destruction; and here
and there remained tokens of a draughtsman's over-generous
struggle to confer upon some of the smooth-shaven faces additional
manliness in the shape of sweeping moustaches, long beards,
goatees, mutton-chops, and, in the case of one gentleman of a
blond, delicate and tenor-like beauty, neck-whiskers;--decorations
in many instances so deeply and damply pencilled that subsequent
attempts at erasure had failed of great success. Certainly,
Hedrick had his own way of relieving dull times.

Cora turned up the lights at the sides of the cheval-glass, looked
at herself earnestly, then absently, and began to loosen her hair.
Her lifted hands hesitated; she re-arranged the slight
displacement of her hair already effected; set two chairs before
the mirror, seated herself in one; pulled up her dress, where it
was slipping from her shoulder, rested an arm upon the back of the
other chair as, earlier in the evening, she had rested it upon the
iron railing of the porch, and, leaning forward, assumed as
exactly as possible the attitude in which she had sat so long
beside Valentine Corliss. She leaned very slowly closer and yet
closer to the mirror; a rich colour spread over her; her eyes,
gazing into themselves, became dreamy, inexpressibly wistful,
cloudily sweet; her breath was tumultuous. "`Even as you and I'?"