“That was why. Perhaps because she made me feel sylph like and elegant. Me, Susan.... Or it might have been Mehetabel; the eldest of the younger ones. I once heard her answer in class....”
“My dear! Could a Speck really speak?”
“Hetta did. In a boo; like the voice of the wind.”
She contemplated her thoughtless simile. It was exactly true. First a sound, breathy and resonant, and then words blown on it.... Alma’s amused laughter was tailing off into little snickers; repeated while she looked for something else. But the revived Specks marshalled themselves more and more clearly, playing their parts in the crowded scene.
“And you know the eldest, Alathea, was quite willowy. Darker than the others. They were all mid-brown.”
“Oh Miriam; doesn’t that express them?”
“I wonder what they are all doing?”
“Nothing, my dear. Oh nothing. Now can you imagine a Speck doing anything whatever?”
“All sitting about in the big house; going mad; on their father’s money.”
“Yes,” said Alma simply, gathering her face into gravity. “It’s rather terrible, you know.” A black shadow bearing slowly down upon the golden picture.... But they were so determined to see women’s lives in that way ... yet there was Miss Lane, and Mildred Gaunt and Eunice Bradley ... three of their own small group; all gone mad.