That evening Lyman Risley came to see Cynthia.

He looked at her anxiously and scrutinizingly when he entered the room, and did not respond to her salutation.
"Well, I have seen the child," he said, in a hushed voice, with a look towards the door as he seated himself before the fire and spread out his hands towards the blaze.

He looked nervous and chilly.
"How did she look ?" asked Cynthia.
"Why in the name of common-sense, Cynthia," he said, abruptly, without noticing her query, "if you had to give that child china for a souvenir, didn't you give her something besides Royal Sevres ?" Lyman Risley undoubtedly looked younger than Cynthia, but his manner even more than his looks gave him the appearance of comparative youth.

There was in it a vehemence and impetuosity almost like that of a boy.

Cynthia, with her strained nervous intensity, seemed very much older.
"Why not ?" said she.
"Why not?
Well, it is fortunate for you that those people have a knowledge for the most part of the fundamental properties of the drama of life, such as bread-and-butter, and a table from which to eat it, and a knife with which to cut it, and a bed in which to sleep, and a stove and coal, and so on, and so on, and that the artistic accessories, such as Royal Sevres, which is no better than common crockery for the honest purpose of holding the tea for the solace of the thirsty mouth of labor, is beneath their attention." "How does the child look, Lyman ?" asked Cynthia Lennox.