"It was not so bad as that," said Mrs. Nailor, her face very red. "Miss Huntington, you can take your hands down now; I sha'n't tell it."
"Thank you," said Lois, and sat quietly back in her chair, with her face as placid as a child's.
Mrs. Nailor suddenly changed the conversation to Art. She was looking at a painting on the wall behind Keith, and after inspecting it a moment through her lorgnon, turned toward the head of the table.
"Where did you get that picture, Mrs. Wickersham? Have I ever seen it before?"
The hostess's gaze followed hers.
"That? Oh, we have had it ever so long. It is a portrait of an ancestor of mine. It belonged to a relative, a distant relative--another branch, you know, in whose family it came down, though we had even more right to it, as we were an older branch," she said, gaining courage as she went on.
Mrs. Lancaster turned and inspected the picture.
"I, too, almost seem to have seen it before," she said presently, in a reflective way.
"My dear, you have not seen it before," declared the hostess, positively. "Although we have had it for a good while, it was at our place in the country. Brush, the picture-dealer, says it is one of the finest 'old masters' in New York, quite in the best style of Sir Peter--What's his name?"
"Then I have seen some one so like it--? Who can it be?" said Mrs. Lancaster, her mind still working along the lines of reminiscence.