Cleorita and Oviata, with intuitive susceptibility, detected the new
phase of attraction to which Mr. Welson had become subject, and assumed
the entertainment of his adopted children until evening song, although
they were inclined to hold padre carita in attendance on the plea that
they should not see him from to-morrow for a whole month. With the
canopied shadows cast by the sun’s decline over the city, the eyes of
Lovieta and Lavoca, under the reactive weight of unusual excitement,
began to flicker, and they were dismissed to their beds while expressing
in drowsy accents the happiness they anticipated from the warmth of
their adoption by the niñétas de escuela. The twilight chirps of the
suffragian court sparrows from trellis-vine perches, in preparation for
their song of praise, had scarce betokened the break of day, before
Cleorita and Oviata aroused with fondlings their nycephas from their
deep sleep into the dreamful slumbers that precede with herald prelude
the instinctive mood of ruling impression. While yet hovering with
suspended wings in the balance of sleeping and waking impressions,
conscious affection murmured in pleading accents, “Mamma, papa, poco mas
suéño?” But with the renewal of the rosy salutations, the waking
twilight of perception began to dawn, and then, with the first sunlight
rays of memory, their eyes quickly opened to receive the fond greetings
of the Kyronese maids with tokens of kindred affection.
After a responsive mediation with arms and lips, in grateful
acknowledgment for the service rendered by their loving monitors, who
were self-delegated aids for dress adjustment, in preparation for
joining in the morning song of praise, they made quick dispatch, and,
unassisted by the proffered hands of the maids, accomplished their first
self-introduction into Heraclean costume.
At the conclusion of the matin salutation of praise, offered from all
the thresholds of the inhabited homes of the city and latifundium, in
which they enthusiastically joined with infantile zest, they exclaimed,
“How beautiful and neighborly kind!” Then joyfully asked, “Why, padre
carita, how did you learn to sing? Will papa learn when he comes? It
will be so nice for him and mamma to join together in the cantata viva
of morning and evening, when all is right, without a wrong, to make them
unhappy.”
After the morning meal, Lovieta and Lavoca, with Annette in special
charge, under the care of Correliana and Luocuratia, were escorted by
the Heracleans, Kyronese, and members of the corps to the gate of the
nymphatasium, and were there fondly received in the matriculating arms
of the teachers and censors, and their future associates, with such
tokens of affectionate sympathy that home longings lost their poignancy,
causing their eyes to overflow with genial joy, watering the smiles
evoked from greetings of self-forgetfulness, with the balm of affection.
Annette’s reception was one of equal warmth, but timed for the Giga
reserve of dignity conferred with the distinctions of age. Before her
entrance, she had gratefully accepted the proffered adoption of
childless Heraclean parents, so that she could look forward to the
forthcoming monthly day of visitation, with the certainty of receiving
their unselfish endearments.
In the farewell greetings were mingled the novecetas’ assurances of
their determination to merit warm approval for their improvement at the
next monthly visitation; of this all felt assured; for with other
adaptive regulations the hours of sleep were so well timed for the
requirements of healthy recuperation, that even the dream shadows of
morning liberation were curtailed of their precedental phantasmagoric
impressions of instinctive hallucination.