As she spoke she nicked up from the table a big red plush photograph album. Seating herself at his side she opened it, and began to tell him of the pictures, one by one.
She did, indeed, know “quite a lot” of most of them. Tintypes, portraying stiffly held hands and staring eyes, ghostly reproductions of daguerreotypes of stern-lipped men and women, in old-time stock and kerchief; photographs of stilted family groups after the “he-is-mine-and-I-am-his” variety; snap-shots of adorable babies with blurred thumbs and noses—never had Mr. John Smith seen their like before.
Politely he listened. Busily, from time to time, he jotted down a name or date. Then, suddenly, as she turned a page, he gave an involuntary start. He was looking at a pictured face, evidently cut from a magazine.
“Why, what—who—” he stammered.
“That? Oh, that’s Mr. Fulton, the millionaire, you know.” Miss Flora’s hands fluttered over the page a little importantly, adjusting a corner of the print. “You must have seen his picture. It’s been everywhere. He’s our cousin, too.”
“Oh, is he?”
“Yes, ’way back somewhere. I can’t tell you just how, only I know he is. His mother was a Blaisdell. That’s why I’ve always been so interested in him, and read everything I could—in the papers and magazines, you know.”
“Oh, I see.” Mr. John Smith’s voice had become a little uncertain.
“Yes. He ain’t very handsome, is he?” Miss Flora’s eyes were musingly fixed on the picture before her—which was well, perhaps: Mr. John Smith’s face was a study just then.
“Er—n-no, he isn’t.”