"He says looks too, doesn't he?"
"One of them, certainly. But you can't tell, from men. And it's one thing one time, another another." Here a pause, following a question from Mrs. Eldridge, "Have you stirred it?" and an irrelevant answer, "I don't want it to get too strong," from Mrs. Challis. Then tea. During which the subject is picked up and dropped at intervals, an eye being kept on it throughout. It is like a mouse a cat is warden of.
"I suppose the good-looking one is the one he sees most of. They do." Mrs. Eldridge is enigmatical.
Her friend is almost equally so. "I suppose it's better always to take no notice of it," she says.
"Always better." Decisively, as from an authority.
"The other one carves something, or does art needlework. When grandma was a girl they did painting on velvet—poonah, it was called. Or took likenesses. But then they wore ringlets."
"I know. And their waists were goodness knows where. But they did ruins in water-colours."
"In sepia. Ma has some in a portfolio. Ready for your other cup?" The answer is substantially in the affirmative.
"Don't put the sugar in this time. They're such big lumps.... Thanks!... Yes, that was before it was Art Things, and Liberty's. They were just regarded as accomplishments where there were daughters. Then, if they became old maids, they kept it up. Because they had such families." This did not mean that the old maids of three generations back created scandals, but that our grandmothers' domestic cares stood in the way of their career as poonah-painters and so forth.
Mrs. Challis cut the cake. Some always wait till this stage of tea to do this. But there are many schools. Then she said: "Titus says it's photography has put an end to all that sort of thing. I shouldn't wonder."