“How did you look then?” Rose was trying to imagine Miss Eudora as a young girl.
“Oh, just as I do now,” with a complacent glance in her mirror. “I haven’t changed as some people do. Not long ago I met a friend—well, an old admirer, and he said he would like to know what I did to keep myself so young; that I didn’t look any older than I did when he first knew me. I think my hair may have something to do with that; curls do have a youthful effect. That’s the reason, I believe, Jane is always wanting me to put mine back.
“Jane,” and she sank her voice to a whisper, “was always plain, and never received the admiration, or was the favorite with gentlemen I was, and it has always made her jealous of me. But I’m fond of my curls,” giving them a shake. “Why, I even had a poem written on them once, and I sha’n’t put them up, at least not till I begin to grow old.”
Rose listened in amazement. She was sure Miss Silence was younger than Miss Eudora, her hair was not grey, nor her face marked with such little fine lines, and neither she nor Mrs. Patience ever talked like that. It was all very queer, and most of all that Miss Eudora could fancy that she looked young.
“You were a long time doing the chamberwork,” Miss Fifield remarked when Rose went downstairs. Miss Fifield was in the kitchen baking, her scant house dress clinging to her angular figure, and her grey hair drawn back with painful tightness.
Rose noted the contrast between the two sisters as she answered, “Miss Eudora was talking to me.”
“What about?” a trifle sharply.
Rose hesitated slightly. “Several things; her visit to the city for one.”
“I’ll warrant. Perhaps you found it interesting, but when you have heard the same story twenty-seven years, as I have, twenty-seven years this winter, it will get to be a weariness of the flesh; that and her lovers.” She shot a keen glance at Rose, who could not help a giggle.
Miss Jane Fifield shook the flour from her hands with energy. “I used to hope that Eudora would grow sensible sometime, but I’ve about given it up. One thing I am thankful for, that there is something inside of my head, and not all put on the outside!” and she shut the oven door with a force that threatened danger to the lightness of the pound cake she was baking.