Sylvia smiled, but her lips felt stiff, and the effort was not a success. A little weight of depression settled over her spirits. She felt anything but sympathetic for the deprivations of Miss Mollie Burrell.
Chapter Thirteen.
Bargain-Hunting.
Two days after Sylvia’s return home, Pixie took the tinted photograph across the road for inspection. She had toiled at it with conscientious effort, but, alas! the result was pathetically bad, the paint being laid on in uncertain daubs, while carmine cheeks and scarlet lips laid the buxom lady under suspicion of sickening for fever or some other deadly complaint. Pixie herself was vaguely disquieted by the general effect, but, as she earnestly explained, you “got used to it after a bit, and it didn’t look so bad. And even if it was only half price this time, it would be encouraging to the family!”
Sylvia refrained from criticism, but helped to pack the work of art between two sheets of cardboard in readiness for the post, and after that was done, took her visitor downstairs to be introduced to Miss Munns.
The old lady was sitting darning stockings, with a newspaper spread over one half of the table and a little bowl standing ready to receive the snippings of worsted. On the baize cloth at the other end stood an indiarubber plant and four little artificial ferns. A gas fire flickered in the grate, a wire blind shut out the view, the chairs stood ranged in mathematical order against the walls, the very newspaper was folded into an accurate square and put away in the rack, and Pixie looked round with awed eyes the while she was introduced.
“This is Bridgie’s youngest sister, Aunt Margaret—Pixie O’Shaughnessy.”
“I hope you are quite well, my dear,” said Miss Munns.