"Gholson, no! she can't trust Gholson, Gholson's conscience is too vindictive; that's why she's keeping him with her as long as she can. No, but until some of us, I say, can give Oliver a thousand times better than he ought ever to get--except for her sake--""Hulloa," he exclaimed, "you look pretty bent."
FORE:CHAPTER VIIOur promenaders hurried into close order and with quick step and eager converse we moved toward the house. In raptures scintillant with their own beauty the three Harper girls inflated each item of the day's news and the morrow's outlook, and it was almost as pretty to see Miss Harper's keen black eyes and loving-tolerant smile go back and forth from Camille to Estelle, from Estelle to C��cile, and round again, as each maiden added some new extravagance to the glad vaunting of the last, and looked, for confirmation, to the gallant who toiled to keep her under her parasol. Suddenly the three girls broke into song with an adaptation of "Oh, carry me back" which substituted "Louisiana" for "Virginia," but whose absurd quaverings I will not betray in words to a generation that never knew the frantic times to which they belonged. I felt a shamefacedness for them even then, yet when I glanced behind, Miss Harper was singing with us in the most exalted earnest. We had nearly reached the field-gate, the big white one on the highway, and were noting that the dust of the General and his retinue had barely vanished from the southern stretch of the road, when one feminine voice said "What's that?" another exclaimed "See yonder!" and Miss Harper cried "Why, gentlemen, somebody's house is burning!"
��Oh, I hope so,�� said Alice, extending her long neck over her embroidery."The orchestra furnishes music by means of the guitar, or 'samisen.' It is played something like our guitar, except that a piece of ivory is used for striking the strings, and is always used in a concert that has any pretence to being properly arranged. There are two or three other instruments, one of them a small drum, which they play upon with the fingers; but it is not so common as the samisen, and I don't think it is so well liked. Then they have flutes, and some of them are very sweet, and harmonize well with the samisen; but the singers do not like them for an accompaniment[Pg 235] unless they have powerful voices. The samisen-players generally sing, and in the theatres the musicians form a part of the chorus. A good deal of the play is explained by the chorus; and if there are any obscure points, the audience is told what they are. I remember seeing the same thing almost exactly, or, at any rate, the same thing in principle, in the performance of "Henry V." at a theatre in New York several years ago, so that this idea of having the play explained by the chorus cannot be claimed as a Japanese invention."Well, that is the place where the sailors landed from the small boats for the purpose of storming the forts, while the gun-boats were shelling them farther up the river."