"I don't know, indeed!" Clara impetuously replied. "You know it doesn't matter a bit what the subject is, so long as it's a good one!"
Once more the sisters exchanged looks of alarm, and one of them whispered something to the other, of which Clara caught only the one word "mad."
"They mean Aunt Mattie, of course," she said to herself—fancying, in her innocence, that London was like her native town, where everybody knew everybody else. "If you mean my aunt," she added aloud, "she's there—just three pictures beyond Lieutenant Brown."
"Ah, well! Then you'd better go to her, my dear!" her new friend said, soothingly. "She'll find you the picture you want. Good-bye, dear!"
"Good-bye, dear!" echoed the other sister, "Mind you don't lose sight of your aunt!" And the pair trotted off into another room, leaving Clara rather perplexed at their manner.
"They're real darlings!" she soliloquised. "I wonder why they pity me so!" And she wandered on, murmuring to herself "It must have two good marks, and——"