“I shouldn’t put it quite like that,” Mrs. Follette said with some severity; “we didn’t talk like that when I was a girl.”
“Didn’t you?” Jane asked. “Well, I know you were a darling, Mrs. Follette. And you were pretty. There’s that portrait of you in the library in pink.”
“I looked well in pink,” said Mrs. Follette, thoughtfully, “but the best picture that was ever done of me is a miniature that Evans has.” She buttered another slice of bread. She had no fear of growing fat. She was fat, but she was also stately and one neutralized the other. To think of Mrs. Follette as thin would have been to rob her of her duchess rôle.
Jane had not seen the miniature. She asked if she might.
“I’ll get it,” said Mrs. Follette, and rose.
Jane protested, “Can’t I do it?”
“No, my dear. I know right where to put my hand on it.”
She went into the cool and shadowy hall and started up the stairs, and it was from the shadows that Jane heard her call.
There was something faint and agitated in the cry, and Jane flew on winged feet.
Mrs. Follette was holding on to the stair-rail, swaying a little. “I can’t go any higher,” she panted; “I’ll sit here, my dear, while you get my medicine. It’s in my room on the dresser.”