“One thing,—­I don’t like statuary in any attitude which, if continued, would seem to be painful.  I know artists admire what gives an impression of motion; and I like to look at Mercury once; as you say, it gives an idea of flight, of motion,—­and it is beautiful for two minutes.  But then comes a sense of its being painful.  So that statue of Hebe, or Aurora,—­which is it?—­looks as if swiftly coming towards you; but only for a minute.  It does not satisfy you longer, because the unfitness comes then, and the fatigue, and your imagination is harassed and fretted.  I think statuary should be in repose,—­that is, if we want it in the house as a constant object of sight.  Eve at the fountain, or Echo listening, or Sabrina fair sitting

  “’Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
  With twisted braids of lilies knitting
  The loose train of her amber-dropping hair.’

“No matter, if she is represented employed.  The motion may go so far.”

I suppose I looked blank.

“Oh, don’t think I am not glad to admire it.  I thought you were thinking of it for Aunt Allen’s gift,” continued Laura.

“And so I was.  It costs just fifty dollars.  But I think you are right about it.  And, besides, do you like bronze, Laura?”

“I like marble a great, great deal best.  There is a bronze statue of Fortune, and a Venus, at Harris & Stanwood’s, that are called ’so beautiful!’—­and I wouldn’t have them in my house.”

Here was an extinguisher.  Laura didn’t like bronze.  And Laura was to be in my house, whether bronzes—­were or not.

* * * * *

The sun shone brightly through the bitter-sweet that ran half over the window, and lighted on the corner of an old mahogany chest.

“That reminds me!” said I, suddenly.  “Yesterday, I was looking at crockery, and there was the most delightful cabinet!—­real Japan work, such as we read of; full of little drawers, and with carved silver handles, and a secret drawer that shoots out when you touch a spring at the back.  Wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing to stand in the parlor, Laura?”

“For what, Del?  Could you keep silver in it?  How large is it?”

“Why, no,—­it wouldn’t be large enough to hold silver.  And, besides, I don’t know that I want it for any such purpose.  It would hold jewelry.”

“If you had any, Del.”

“There’s the secret drawer,—­that would be capital for anything I wanted to keep perfectly secret.”

“Such as what’?”

“Oh, I don’t know what, now; but I might possibly have.”

“I can’t think of anything you would want to shut up in that drawer,” said Laura, laughing at my mysterious face, which she said looked about as secret as a hen-coop with the chickens all flying out between the slats.  “In the first place, you haven’t any secrets, and are not likely to have; and next, you will show us (Mr. Sampson and me) the drawer and spring the first thing you do.  And I shall look there every week, to see if there’s anything hid there!”