“Now, Mrs. Sterling, just a touch of rouge and you will be complete,” said Adeline, giving a last pat to Mrs. Sterling’s hair, and looking coaxingly down into Mrs. Sterling’s face.
“Not at this late day, Adeline,” smiled Mrs. Sterling. “I have gotten along thus far without paint and I think that I can make my appearance without it. The Indians wear it sometimes, out where I came from.”
“Just as you say, madam,” sighed Adeline, with regret. She saw nothing amusing in being denied those final touches of “complexion,” as Ann called it. But Mrs. Sterling’s face was so fine without it, that she took some pride after all, in the results of her handiwork, and smiled at the two, who went out into the hall and downstairs like two girls together, arm in arm.
“Isn’t it funny,” said Ann, “that Ronald Bentley’s mother should turn out to be one of your old chums?”
“Why ‘funny,’ Ann?”
“Oh, I don’t know, only that I should know him pretty well and not know about how intimate you and she used to be.”
The Bentleys had arrived when Ann and her mother went into the long and beautiful sun parlor, or glassed porch, which was a comparatively recent addition to Madam LeRoy’s mansion. Prettily furnished, it was so attractive that it was a favorite spot now for both family and guests.
“Elizabeth LeRoy!” exclaimed Mrs. Bentley, warmly embracing Ann’s mother. “How glad I am to see you after all these years. I hope that I was not the one to stop writing.”
“It was probably I, Grace,” said Mrs. Sterling, “for I was going about and doing many things in those first years of my married life.”