_
'That is just why I liked them so, because they were old-fashioned; it
made them look like heir-looms, and showed that one had always had a
family,' Dolly said.
Grace Atherton shrugged her still plump shoulders just a little, and
thought of the first call she ever made upon Dolly, when she entered
through the kitchen and the lady entertained her in her working-apron!
Dolly did not look now as if she had ever seen a working-apron, and was
very bright and talkative, and entertaining, and all the more so because
of her husband's silence. He was given to moods, and sometimes
aggravated his wife to desperation when he left all the conversation to
her.
'Do talk,' she would say to him when they were alone. 'Do talk to people
and not sit so glum, with that great wrinkle between your eyes as if you
were mad at something; and do laugh, too, when anybody tells anything
worth laughing at, and not leave it all to me. Why, I actually giggle at
times until I feel like a fool, while you never smile or act as if you
heard a word. Look at me occasionally, and when I elevate my
eyebrows--_so_--brace up and say something, if it isn't so cunning.'
This _elevating of the eyebrows_ and _bracing up_ were matters of
frequent occurrence, as Frank grew more and more silent and abstracted,
and now after he had sat through a funny story told by Mr.
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