The difficulties of the introduction were forgotten in the excitement of cutting the cake, and it was not long before the last of the crackers was pulled; a yellow paper crown was found for Mr. Sotheby; there were paper caps for the rest of the company, and though several of the mottoes alluded to Christmas, they were read aloud with pleasure and received with delight.
“It is too bad, Richard,” said Mr. Sotheby over his third cup of tea. “You are going away the day after to-morrow, and you have never painted the portrait of your mother, for which I have asked so often.”
Anne felt numb on hearing that Richard was going away in two days’ time: “Why didn’t he tell me that?” she asked herself, but without noticing her look the grocer went on: “You have spent all your time out sketching the old manor house, but you have not shown us any of your work.”
“He brought it back to-day,” said Mrs. Sotheby. “But I haven’t seen it.” Richard was reluctant to show his picture, but at last he left the room, and it was only then, seeing Rachel was trembling, and upset about something, that Anne suddenly remembered that the Sothebys might easily recognize the figure of the girl in the foreground, engaged in doing up her hair.
Richard lifted an eyebrow at her as he put the canvas on the mantelpiece, and there was a long silence, a silence which grew alarming, and Anne knew that she had been recognized.
“This figure is you, Miss Dunnock,” said the grocer at last, speaking stiffly.
“Miss Dunnock came by while I was making tea for Richard,” said Rachel in her precise tone, and everyone in the room breathed more freely. “She stayed to tea with us.”
“And she was good enough to pose for me while I drew a sketch of her to put into the foreground,” said Richard.
“It was very kind of you, to be sure,” said his father.
“I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Richard,” said Mrs. Sotheby. “Putting Miss Dunnock into your horrid picture like that; you haven’t done her justice at all. I should scarcely have recognized her.” And the grocer’s wife gave Anne a little smile to tell her that she did not mind Richard’s having painted her instead of the portrait that his father wanted.