. She dressed becomingly, received
calls and returned them, but hardly spoke a word. People rather dreaded
her coming. Miss Martha Rose would sit composedly in a proffered chair,
her gloved hands crossed over her nice, gold-bound card-case, her chin
tilted at an angle which never varied, her mouth in a set smile which
never wavered, her slender feet in their best shoes toeing out precisely
under the smooth sweep of her gray silk skirt. Miss Martha Rose dressed
always in gray, a fashion which the village people grudgingly admired.
It was undoubtedly becoming and distinguished, but savored ever so
slightly of ostentation, as did her custom of always dressing little
Lucy in blue. There were different shades and fabrics, but blue it
always was. It was the best color for the child, as it revealed the fact
that her big, dark eyes were blue. Shaded as they were by heavy, curly
lashes, they would have been called black or brown, but the blue in
them leaped to vision above the blue of blue frocks. Little Lucy had the
finest, most delicate features, a mist of soft, dark hair, which curled
slightly, as mist curls, over sweet, round temples. She was a small,
daintily clad child, and she spoke and moved daintily and softly;
and when her blue eyes were fixed upon anybody's face, that person
straightway saw love and obedience and trust in them, and love met love
half-way. Even Miss Martha Rose looked another woman when little Lucy's
innocent blue eyes were fixed upon her rather handsome but colorless
face between the folds of her silvery hair; Miss Martha's hair had
turned prematurely gray. Light would come into Martha Rose's face, light
and animation, although she never talked much even to Lucy. She never
talked much to her cousin Cyril, but he was rather glad of it. He had
a keen mind, but it was easily diverted, and he was engrossed in his
business, and concerned lest he be disturbed by such things as feminine
chatter, of which he certainly had none in his own home, if he kept
aloof from Jenny, the colored maid. Hers was the only female voice ever
heard to the point of annoyance in the Rose house.

It was rather wonderful how a child like little Lucy and Miss Martha
lived with so little conversation. Martha talked no more at home than
abroad; moreover, at home she had not the attitude of waiting for some
one to talk to her, which people outside considered trying. Martha did
not expect her cousin to talk to her. She seldom asked a qu