“I'll pay my dollar gladly, and take a chance for it,” whispered a third, “but I wouldn't let such a thing as that enter my happy home——”
“Neither would I!”
“Nor me, neither. I've had trouble enough. My husband's first wife's portrait has brought me discord enough—an' it was a straight likeness. I don't want any more pictures to put in the hen-house loft.”
So the feeling ran among the wives.
“Well,” said she who was blowing out the candle, “I'll draw for it—an' take it if I win it, an' consider it a sort of inheritance. I never inherited anything but indigestion.”
The last speaker was a maiden lady, and so was she who answered, chuckling:
“That's what I say! Anything for a change. There'd be some excitement in a picture where a man was liable to show up. It's more than I've got now. I do declare it's just scandalous the way we're gigglin', an' the poor soul hardly out o' hearin'. She had a kind heart, Mis' Morris had, an' she made herself happy with a mighty slim chance——”
“Yes, she did—and I only wish there'd been a better man waitin' for her in that hotel.”