"Oh, mother, here's Miss Cloot just getting out of her victoria," said Genevieve. "Now, the College of Beauty would be a godsend to her! You must really tell her about it—it would be a charity!"
Miss Cloot was the ugliest old maid in London and its environs within a radius of twenty miles; she was really dreadful—that's the only word for it. She was comfortably off, yet she was still a spinster at forty. She was a remarkable woman, was Miss Cloot—you'll see.
During a lull in the conversation, Mother introduced the subject of the College of Beauty—as a charity. At first Miss Cloot listened with somewhat feeble interest; but after a few moments there suddenly appeared in her eye a remarkable light; beyond that, there was little perceptible change in her manner; but anyone who knew her well would have known that that light in her eye meant something.
"Dear me, yes, very interesting—an excellent notion," said Miss Cloot, blandly.
"'AN EXCELLENT NOTION,' SAID MISS CLOOT."
"But you can't think for an instant that there's anything in it?" said Mother.
"Dear me, why not?" said Miss Cloot. "I have no doubt there's a great deal in it. Why shouldn't there be?—'Too wonderful to be true!'—well, but, are Edison's inventions too wonderful to be true? Oh, dear me, no! Not a bit too wonderful. You may be sure there's something in it."
"Do—er—do you propose to——?" began Mother: and then it suddenly occurred to her that she had better not ask that question; so she turned it off to—"get any new things this spring?"
Miss Cloot went straight home with that remarkable light in her eye all the time; and when she got in she straightway sat down and wrote a dozen letters. Miss Cloot numbered among her extensive acquaintance twelve old maids, all comfortably off, and all plain—though falling short of her own attainments in the latter respect.