“My uncle? Yes. But my aunt has a headache. Otherwise she’d have come with me this afternoon.”
“She’d better keep quiet.” Miss Pamela shook her head. “A cousin of mine, over Rutland way—Andromeda Spear, you’ve heard of her, maybe—your aunt always puts me in mind of her—she used to have headaches like that, and she wouldn’t hear to reason about ’em. So she kept on her feet when she’d ought to be lyin’ down, and one day—’twas a fall day, like this, I remember—she had a seizure in the hen house, and she never got over it—though she lingered for years,” she added, by way of consideration.
“But, you see, Miss Roscoe, we have no hen house,” retorted Annie, with a sort of flippant desperation.
“Well, there’s plenty of places,” remarked the other, sententiously. “Bed’s not the only place to die in, and I’ve always believed in proper precautions. You give Miss Bangs my respects, and tell her that she can’t be too careful.”
Then followed a fusillade of questions—the length of her stay, her graduation from college in June, her likelihood of marriage, and her religious beliefs.
Dazed, depleted, the girl’s answers grew monosyllabic, in spite of an air of forced gayety which she strove hard to maintain. Somehow the inherent and masterful depression of her hostess was weighing her down. Outside the sun had settled in clouds, and a somber twilight stole in through the window. The voice opposite droned on, engrossing, dominating, hypnotic. Annie realized that unless she roused herself she would relapse into permanent silence, and so, in a lucky pause, as her eyes fell upon a strange object hanging above the mantelpiece, she grew aggressive for the moment, and boldly asked a question herself.
“Pardon my interrupting, Miss Roscoe, but do you mind telling me what is that mysterious and interesting—thing?”
Miss Pamela’s gaze followed the turn of Annie’s head. She rose grimly from her seat and went to the further corner of the room, whence she abstracted a yardstick and stood before the fire-board. Deftly she pushed off a cloth that enshrouded the object, and disclosed what had evidently been, at one time, a chromo of vast dimensions; its bright gilt frame remained intact, but the picture itself was entirely obliterated by successive coatings of her useful gold paint, and to the center was affixed half of a flower basket—the flaring kind—cut longitudinally. This basket, also gilded heavily, was filled with a varied profusion of artificial fruits.
Annie turned her chair. Miss Pamela cleared her throat and pointed with the yardstick.
“It’s not a thing, Miss Jenkins,” she began, with some severity, “but a sort of monument that I have made—I call it my ‘Memorial Fruit Piece.’” There was about Miss Roscoe something of the pride of the discoverer, and she warmed to her subject.