It was on this occasion that Isobel finally decided to buy her camera without delay and get some really interesting snap-shots of the girls and the house, and have the best photographs enlarged and framed for Miss Crabingway.
"While we're on the subject," said Pamela, "I should like to give something or other to Martha and Ellen, wouldn't you? They've looked after us awfully well—what can we do for them, I wonder?"
They discussed presents for Martha and Ellen, and decided each to make or buy something suitable within the next fortnight.
Pamela went round to see the Baggs after tea. She knew that it was one of the days Elizabeth went over to Inchmoor and that she would not be back home again until seven o'clock, because it was the evening she stayed later to do her housekeeping shopping. But Pamela did not want to see Elizabeth herself. She wanted to see her firelight picture, which she knew was just finished.
The eldest little Bagg girl was setting the table for her father's tea when Pamela arrived at 'Alice Maud Villa.'
"I'm just going up to Elizabeth's room for something," said Pamela, after she had helped to lay the table. Tom Bagg was not in yet, but expected in every minute.
Upstairs in the studio Pamela found Elizabeth's picture—finished. She stood before it for some minutes, regarding it earnestly.
"Yes, it's the best thing she's ever done," she said to herself. "I'm sure it is."
To Pamela's eyes the likenesses were excellent; Tom Bagg, with his ruddy, genial face, sitting in his big arm-chair by the fire, chuckling, and pointing with the stem of his pipe at his absorbed audience of children, a habit of his when emphasizing any particular point in the story. The expressions on the children's faces were delightful. Pamela laughed softly to herself as she looked at them.
Then she went to the door, opened it, and listened. Tom Bagg had just come in, and was inquiring when his tea would be ready.