“Good enough!” he exclaimed. “Well, well! Yes, indeed! Good enough!”
Esther asked a question.
“You like it, Uncle Foster?” she queried, anxiously. “Do you really like it?”
He nodded. “Certainly I like it,” he said. “How could I help liking it? For a thing that isn’t a photograph it is mighty good, I should say. That dress, now. Why, that’s just the way that dress looked on you, Esther. Yes, it is.”
“But the likeness, Uncle Foster? Don’t you think it looks like me?”
He jingled the change in his pocket. “Why, yes,” he admitted, though with not quite the same heartiness. “It does look like you—considerably. It’s just hand-done, of course, and you can’t expect a hand-done thing to be like a photograph. But I should know who it was meant for. Honest, I should,” he added, as if with some surprise at the truth of the concession.
Esther was disappointed. “Why, Uncle Foster!” she protested. “I think it is the very image of me.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that, quite,” he observed. “It isn’t as good looking as you are. I’m right there, eh, Griffin? Doesn’t flatter her, does it?”
Bob spoke for the first time. He seemed to be in hearty accord.
“You bet it doesn’t!” he agreed, with emphasis. “I’m not satisfied with it, of course.”