from his dark cloth, running forward with tiny steps as if in a moment he was going to spring up on one toe and begin his dance. "The drapery falling a Jee-tle more careless—there! And the head supported by the hand, easy and relaxed"
Kate instantly became an iron woman.
"Eee-sy and graceful! Just eee-sy and graceful!" Mr. Minty implored, making weeping willows of his hands before he dove under his cloth. Click! Kate could look at Joe and burst out laughing. Everything was so absurd and heavenly.
"Now a livelier pose—more joy de veev, more" Mr. Minty's head went on one side, his eyebrows arched, his thumbs and forefingers pulled an imaginary Christmas cracker in the air. Click! It was a splendid afternoon.
So was the Saturday afternoon when, instead of posing as he had promised, Joe brought home the livery-stable runabout and took her for a drive. Lizzie and Miss Smith and Mrs. Driggs were all at their windows to see them start off, and Kate waggled a hand at fat little Hoagland Driggs, Jr., tricycling on the sidewalk. Joe in his light coat with its big pearl buttons looked as if he were driving the blue-ribbon winner at the Horse Show, instead of O'Leary's old Bessie, and Kate wore puff-sleeved dark-red cloth, for the first September coolness was in the crystal air. Her head was straighter than if a photographer's vise held it, a more than queenly expression of graciousness
