He kissed her and said, “Ah! now you are my Rosa again. Oblige me by handing over that powder-puff to me.” She looked vexed, but complied. “When you come back I will tell you why.”
“You are a pest,” said Mrs. Staines, and so joined her friend, rosy with rain-water and a rub.
“Dear me, how handsome you look to-day!” was Miss Lucas's first remark.
Rosa never dreamed that rain-water and rub could be the cause of her looking so well.
“It is my tiresome husband,” said she. “He objects to powder, and he has taken away my puff.”
“And you stood that?”
“Obliged to.”
“Why, you poor-spirited little creature, I should like to see a husband presume to interfere with me in those things. Here, take mine.”
Rosa hesitated a little. “Well—no—I think not.”
Miss Lucas laughed at her, and quizzed her so on her allowing a man to interfere in such sacred things as dress and cosmetics, that she came back irritated with her husband, and gave him a short answer or two. Then he asked what was the matter.