“Well, I have been thinking of it, but Dr. Wallace gives such dreadful strong medicines, and Lucy is so delicate, that I have hesitated. I don't know but I ought to take her to Alford to Dr. Gilbert, but she doesn't want to go. She says it is too expensive, and she says there's nothing the matter with her; but she has these terrible headaches almost every other day, and she doesn't eat enough to keep a sparrow alive, and I can't help being worried about her.”
“It doesn't seem right,” agreed Mrs. Whitman. “Last time I was here I thought she didn't look real well. She's got color, a real pretty color, but it isn't the right kind.”
“That's just it,” said Mrs. Ayres, wrinkling her forehead. “The color's pretty, but you can see too plain where the red leaves off and where the white begins.”
“Speaking about color,” said Mrs. Whitman, “I am going to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Do you really think Miss Farrel's color is natural?”
“I don't know. It looks so.”
“I know it does, but I had it real straight that she keeps some pink stuff that she uses in a box as bold as can be, right in sight on her wash-stand.”
“I don't know anything about it,” said Mrs. Ayres, in her weary, gentle fashion. “I have heard, of course, that some women do use such things, but none of my folks ever did, and I never knew anybody else who did.”
Then Sylvia opened upon the subject which had brought her there. She had reached it by a process as natural as nature itself.