"
And Nan laughed so blithely, it was a pleasure to hear her.
"Where's Di?" asked John, seized with a most unmasculine curiosity all
at once.
"She is in Germany with 'Wilhelm Meister'; but, though 'lost to sight,
to memory dear'; for I was just thinking, as I did her things, how
clever she is to like all kinds of books that I don't understand at
all, and to write things that make me cry with pride and delight. Yes,
she's a talented dear, though she hardly knows a needle from a
crowbar, and will make herself one great blot some of these days, when
the 'divine afflatus' descends upon her, I'm afraid."
And Nan rubbed away with sisterly zeal at Di's forlorn hose and inky
pocket-handkerchiefs.
"Where is Laura?" proceeded the inquisitor.
"Well, I might say that _she_ was in Italy; for she is copying some
fine thing of Raphael's, or Michel Angelo's, or some great creature's
or other; and she looks so picturesque in her pretty gown, sitting
before her easel, that it's really a sight to behold, and I've peeped
two or three times to see how she gets on."
And Nan bestirred herself to prepare the dish wherewith her
picturesque sister desired to prolong her artistic existence.
"Where is your father?" John asked again, checking off each answer
with a nod and a little frown.
"He is down in the garden, deep in some plan about melons, the
beginning of which seems to consist in stamping the first proposition
in Euclid all over the bed, and then poking a few seeds into the
middle of each.
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