Page 321 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

chests and cabinets of carved and time-polished oak, those
angular specimens of pictorial art in frames as pedantically
primitive, those perverse looking relics of mediaeval brass
and pottery, of which Italy has long been the not quite ex-
hausted storehouse. These things kept terms with articles of
modern furniture in which large allowance had been made
for a lounging generation; it was to be noticed that all the
chairs were deep and well padded and that much space was
occupied by a writing-table of which the ingenious perfec-
tion bore the stamp of London and the nineteenth century.
There were books in profusion and magazines and news-
papers, and a few small, odd, elaborate pictures, chiefly in
water-colour. One of these productions stood on a draw-
ing-room easel before which, at the moment we begin to be
concerned with her, the young girl I have mentioned had
placed herself. She was looking at the picture in silence.
Silence—absolute silence—had not fallen upon her com-
panions; but their talk had an appearance of embarrassed
continuity. The two good sisters had not settled themselves
in their respective chairs; their attitude expressed a final re-
serve and their faces showed the glaze of prudence. They
were plain, ample, mild-featured women, with a kind of
business-like modesty to which the impersonal aspect of
their stiffened linen and of the serge that draped them as
if nailed on frames gave an advantage. One of them, a per-
son of a certain age, in spectacles, with a fresh complexion
and a full cheek, had a more discriminating manner than
her colleague, as well as the responsibility of their errand,
which apparently related to the young girl. This object of

321