She hurried away in her light-footed fashion, and Eliza continued to stand before her cynosure long enough to disarm possible suspicion, and then backed thoughtfully away until she reached a bench upon which she sank, still with eyes upon the picture.
Mrs. Ballard from the next room observed her trance.
"She is waking up. Her eyes are opening, bless her heart," she thought. "Constant dropping does wear the stone."
Eliza would have paraphrased the proverb and declared that constant dropping saves the life.
From this day on she professed, and triumphantly acted upon, an appreciation for certain pictures; and Mrs. Ballard marvelled with pride at the catholicity of her taste; for such serpentine wisdom did Eliza display in passing, unseeing, many an inviting bench, that never, to their last pilgrimage to Mrs. Ballard's mecca, did the latter suspect the source of her companion's modest enthusiasm.
"Poor thing," thought Eliza during these periods of rest; "it's a sin and a shame that she hasn't got anybody worthy to come with her. If those relatives of hers were, any of 'em, fit to live, one of 'em would bring her here sometimes. The poor dear, as long as she hasn't a soul but an ignorant country body like me to sympathize with her, I've got to do my best; and really if I set a spell once in a while, I'll have more sprawl and can seem to enjoy it more. It's awful hard when you can't think of anything but your joints! I'm younger'n she is, and I'm ashamed o' gettin' so tuckered; but she's got some kind o' wings that seem to lift her along."
Mrs. Ballard, from the next room, caught Eliza's eye, smiled, and nodded, well pleased. So the era of peace ensued; and when Miss Brewster caught sight from a street car of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she was able to regard it without a frown.