with an only half concealed eagerness. "Do you think he means it," Janet
asked hopefully, "and he'll never have any geography again?"

"No, I don't," Laurel told her shortly. She was inwardly ruffled, and
further annoyed at Janet's placid acceptance of whatever the day brought
along. Janet was a stick! She turned away and found herself facing the
parlor and the memory of the impending hour of practice. Well, it had to
be done before dinner, and she went forward with dragging feet.

Within the formal shaded space of the chamber she stopped to speculate
on the varied and colorful pictures of the wall paper reaching from the
white paneling above her waist to the deep white carving at the ceiling.
The scene which absorbed her most showed, elevated above a smooth stream,
a marble pavilion with sweeping steps and a polite company about a
reclining gentleman with bare arms and a wreath on his head and a lady in
flowing robes playing pipes. To the right, in deep green shadow, a
charmer was swinging from ropes of flowers, lovers hid behind a brown
mossy trunk; while on the left, against a weeping willow and frowning
rock, four serene creatures gathered about a barge with a gilded prow.

Still on her reluctant progress to the piano she stopped to examine the
East India money on the lowest shelf of a locked corner cupboard. There
was a tiresome string of cash with a rattan twisted through their square
holes; silver customs taels, and mace and candareen; Chinese gold leaf
and Fukien dollars; coins from Cochin China in the shape of India ink,
with raised edges and characters; old Carolus hooked dollars; Sycee
silver ingots, smooth and flat above, but roughly oval on the lower
surface, not unlike shoes; Japanese obangs, their gold stamped and beaten
out almost as broad as a hand's palm; mohurs and pieces from Singapore;
Dutch guilders from Java; and the small silver and gold drops of Siam