CHAPTER XXXI.

Cleorita and Oviata, with intuitive susceptibility, detected the new phase of attraction to which Mr. Welson had become subject, and assumed the entertainment of his adopted children until evening song, although they were inclined to hold padre carita in attendance on the plea that they should not see him from to-morrow for a whole month. With the canopied shadows cast by the sun’s decline over the city, the eyes of Lovieta and Lavoca, under the reactive weight of unusual excitement, began to flicker, and they were dismissed to their beds while expressing in drowsy accents the happiness they anticipated from the warmth of their adoption by the ni?étas de escuela. The twilight chirps of the suffragian court sparrows from trellis-vine perches, in preparation for their song of praise, had scarce betokened the break of day, before Cleorita and Oviata aroused with fondlings their nycephas from their deep sleep into the dreamful slumbers that precede with herald prelude the instinctive mood of ruling impression. While yet hovering with suspended wings in the balance of sleeping and waking impressions, conscious affection murmured in pleading accents, “Mamma, papa, poco mas sué?o?” But with the renewal of the rosy salutations, the waking twilight of perception began to dawn, and then, with the first sunlight rays of memory, their eyes quickly opened to receive the fond greetings of the Kyronese maids with tokens of kindred affection.

435After a responsive mediation with arms and lips, in grateful acknowledgment for the service rendered by their loving monitors, who were self-delegated aids for dress adjustment, in preparation for joining in the morning song of praise, they made quick dispatch, and, unassisted by the proffered hands of the maids, accomplished their first self-introduction into Heraclean costume.

At the conclusion of the matin salutation of praise, offered from all the thresholds of the inhabited homes of the city and latifundium, in which they enthusiastically joined with infantile zest, they exclaimed, “How beautiful and neighborly kind!” Then joyfully asked, “Why, padre carita, how did you learn to sing? Will papa learn when he comes? It will be so nice for him and mamma to join together in the cantata viva of morning and evening, when all is right, without a wrong, to make them unhappy.”

After the morning meal, Lovieta and Lavoca, with Annette in special charge, under the care of Correliana and Luocuratia, were escorted by the Heracleans, Kyronese, and members of the corps to the gate of the nymphatasium, and were there fondly received in the matriculating arms of the teachers and censors, and their future associates, with such tokens of affectionate sympathy that home longings lost their poignancy, causing their eyes to overflow with genial joy, watering the smiles evoked from greetings of self-forgetfulness, with the balm of affection. Annette’s reception was one of equal warmth, but timed for the Giga reserve of dignity conferred with the distinctions of age. Before her entrance, she had gratefully accepted the proffered adoption of childless Heraclean parents, so that she could look forward to the forthcoming monthly day of visitation, with the certainty of receiving their unselfish endearments.

In the farewell greetings were mingled the novecetas’ assurances of their determination to merit warm 436approval for their improvement at the next monthly visitation; of this all felt assured; for with other adaptive regulations the hours of sleep were so well timed for the requirements of healthy recuperation, that even the dream shadows of morning liberation were curtailed of their precedental phantasmagoric impressions of instinctive hallucination.