But Venna's ideas were unchangeable.
"Mahogany always looks so real—that's why I like it best," she invariably replied.
Neither her father nor her aunt knew just exactly what she meant, but if mahogany was Venna's taste, the best of its kind should be hers.
Venna did not sleep long. She awoke rather unrefreshed and tired. She thought of her last night's peculiar dream, and with the thought came the desire to read the tracts the young preacher had given her.
Arising and opening her bag, she found there were only three—one on baptism, one on the Second Coming of Christ and one named "Rays of Living Light."
She sat in her luxurious easy chair by the window and was soon absorbed in thoughts quite new and interesting to her ever receptive mind.
Meantime her aunt downstairs was undergoing quite a shock.
A few minutes after Venna retired, her cousin Luella Allen called.
She was a tall, thin spinster who had never married because the love of her early youth had died. Have you ever met that kind, reader? I mean the one who constantly reminds you of by-gone sorrows with a sort of weepy allegiance to the past which is pious in the extreme and forbids the thought of too much joyousness in the present. Also there is an accompanying tendency to dampen the happiness of others.
Such was Luella Allen, and as she entered the room Emily Hastings noticed the suppressed twitching of her long, thin features and knew this was a sign of strong inward emotions.