A present of a
shilling at the _outside_. No, a shilling is absurd. Sixpence."
"Do you really think so?"
"Yes, sixpence wrapped up in a bit of paper."
"Then _you_ must offer it."
And the other lady did. "Is that your little girl? Oh, what brown
eyes--and mamma's pretty complexion. Good afternoon! We are so much
obliged. And this is for _you_, dear--to buy sweeties."
Mavis was not disposed to allow her small princess to take a tip from
a stranger's hand; but natural good-breeding forced her to acquiesce.
The ladies looked back at her, waved their hands by the garden gate,
and went away talking.
"The child never said 'Thank you.' Badly reared."
"But the mother thanked you. I liked her face. She must have been
distinctly good-looking."
The artists thought her distinctly good-looking even now, and perhaps,
after being repulsed in their quest for bed and board, drifted off
into an idle dream of how they might have met her a few years ago when
they were less famous but more magnetically attractive. What a sitter
she would have been for them, if she wouldn't be anything else! They
admired the extreme delicacy of her nose that seemed so narrow in the
well-rounded face, the loose brown hair that showed such a red flash
in it beneath her sunbonnet, the perfect modeling of full forearms,
firm neck, and ample bosom, the whole poise of her graciously solid
figure, at once so reposeful and so free.
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