The first time Pamela saw the group in the firelit room listening to the story-telling she was struck with an idea, which she afterward communicated to Elizabeth.
"It would make a simply ripping picture—and you're so good at likenesses—I wonder you don't do it," she urged.
And, after a while, Elizabeth Bagg did do it. She set to work up in her studio, and began on a picture of Tom Bagg sitting in a firelit room telling a story to the children around him.
"Get the expression on his face when he's chuckling," said Pamela.
So Elizabeth watched him and caught the chuckling expression and transmitted it to her picture.
"Absolutely," was the delighted Pamela's verdict when she saw it; and her enthusiasm roused Elizabeth to put her best work into the painting, although she had no future plans for it when it was finished. Possibly it would have drifted finally into the cupboard in her studio. Elizabeth, with her tiresome lack of initiative, would have taken no further trouble with the picture after it was done.
But Pamela had a plan for the firelight picture which she did not mention to Elizabeth Bagg, but waited eagerly for the completion of the painting.
Meanwhile Isobel, unable to get Pamela or Beryl to join in having dancing-lessons with her, had at length, much to her own surprise, prevailed on Caroline to come to Madame Clarence's with her twice a week. As Caroline sat over her sewing so much, and had very little exercise, these visits to the Dancing Academy probably did her a great deal of good. Not that she enjoyed dancing; but being persuaded that it was good for her health, she took her lessons regularly and solemnly, just as she would have taken medicine twice daily after meals had she thought she should do so. Although Isobel (to use her own expression) was not 'frightfully keen' on Caroline, yet she found her useful in yet another way besides being a companion to travel with to and from Inchmoor.
When Isobel heard that Sir Henry and Lady Prior and family had returned to the Manor House, she lived for a few days in a state of pleasurable expectation, from which state she was presently transported into one of intense joy. For she discovered that the Manor House Priors actually were connected with her—though very distantly, it must be confessed.
And Caroline was the medium through whom she learnt this eventful piece of news.