Just then, Zack fixed his eyes on her and increased her confusion.
"She looks prettier than ever to-night, don't she, Mrs.Blyth ?" he said, sitting down and yawning again.

"I always like her best when her eyes brighten up and look twenty different ways in a minute, just as they're doing now.

She may not be so like Raphael's pictures at such times, I dare say (here he yawned once more); but for my part--What's she wanting to get away for?
And what are you laughing about, Mrs.Blyth?
I say, Valentine, there's some joke going on here between the ladies!" "Do you remember this, Zack ?" asked Mrs.Blyth, tightening her hold of Madonna with one hand, and producing the framed drawing of the Venus de' Medici with the other.
"Madonna's copy from my bust of the Venus!" cried Valentine, interposing with his usual readiness, and skipping forward with his accustomed alacrity.
"Madonna's copy from Blyth's bust of the Venus," echoed Zack, coolly; his slippery memory not having preserved the slightest recollection of the drawing at first sight of it.
"Dear me! how nicely it's framed, and how beautifully she has finished it!" pursued Valentine, gently patting Madonna's shoulder, in token of his high approval and admiration.
"Very nicely framed, and beautifully finished, as you say, Blyth," glibly repeated Zack, rising from his chair, and looking rather perplexed, as he noticed the expression with which Mrs.Blyth was regarding him.
"But who got it framed ?" asked Valentine.

"She would never have any of her drawings framed before.

I don't understand what it all means." "No more do I," said Zack, dropping back into his chair in lazy astonishment.