Ida glanced at the picture as she approached the bureau to lay upon it her hat, which she had just taken off.
"The room is pleasant enough," she said, carelessly. "I can improve it by the addition of a few unframed water-colors I brought with me—my own work, of course. But this wall-paper is hideous," with a little shudder, "and yet it looks fresh."
"Yes, it is new; Aunt Patty chose it," said Cynthia. "The old paper was so ugly. We both thought you wouldn't like it. But this—why, it looks pretty to me, though, of course, I do not pretend to any great artistic taste."
"No, or you would hardly have left that atrocity over my bureau," rejoined Ida. "I believe I used to think it a work of art when I was a child. Now it offends my eye. Take it down, Cynthia; I couldn't sleep with it in the room."
Cynthia bit her lip; but she stepped up on a convenient chair and took down the offending picture.
"There, that is better," said Ida. "And will you have the servant bring me a pitcher of warm water? I must bathe some of this wretched dust from my face."
"I will bring it," said Cynthia; "we don't keep a servant."
"No servant!" Ida stared at her sister. "Why, how in the world do you ever get along without one?"
"We have a woman come to wash every Monday, and the rest of the work we do ourselves."
"By preference?"