Jim Dodge had treated her to one of his dark-browed, incisive glances before replying.
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that question satisfactorily, Miss Orr,” was what he said.
And Lydia, wondering, desisted from further question.
“That middle one looks some like one of the young ladies that was here this morning,” observed Martha, with the privileged familiarity of an old servant.
“She must have dropped it,” said Lydia, slowly.
“The young ladies here in the country has very bad manners,” commented Martha, puckering her lips primly. “I wouldn’t put myself out for them, if I was you, mem.”
Lydia turned the picture over and gazed abstractedly at the three words written there: “Lest we forget!” Beneath this pertinent quotation appeared the initials “W. E.”
“If it was for me to say,” went on Martha, in an injured tone, “I’d not be for feedin’ up every man, woman and child that shows their face inside the grounds. Why, they don’t appreciate it no more than—”
The woman’s eloquent gesture appeared to include the blue-bottle fly buzzing noisily on the window-pane:
“Goodness gracious! if these flies ain’t enough to drive a body crazy—what with the new paint and all....”