Richard was still rosily asleep and Elizabeth was hurriedly attaching the ruffles to one of the improvised curtains when Celia, with two buttons off her frock in the back and a broad streak of stove-blacking across her honest red face, announced "one nize lady."

Elizabeth sprang to her feet in sudden consternation at sight of the small square of white pasteboard with which Celia prefaced her announcement.

Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Duser was a distant relative of Samuel Brewster's, and it pleased her to be kind, in an imposing and majestic manner—entirely suited to her own imposing and majestic person—to his "little family," as she invariably termed it. Elizabeth had assured her husband on more than one occasion that she did not feel the least embarrassment in that august presence; but her heart still flew to her mouth at sight of the entirely[Pg 49] correct equipage from Beacon Street, and she always found herself drawing a long breath of unconfessed relief when it rolled away after one of Mrs. Van Duser's infrequent visits.

[Pg 49]

When presently Mrs. Van Duser, large, bland and encased in broadcloth and sables, entered, she bestowed a gracious kiss upon Elizabeth's cheek, and seated herself in a straight-backed chair with the effect of a magistrate about to administer justice.

"I trust you received the little brochure I mailed you last week," was her initial remark, accompanied by a searching glance at Elizabeth's agitated face. "I refer to 'Anthropological investigations on one thousand children, white and coloured.' I looked it over most carefully and marked the passages I deemed particularly helpful and suggestive."

"Thank you, Mrs. Van Duser," faltered Elizabeth, "I did get the book, and I—was intending to write to you to-day to thank you for it."

"Have you read it?" inquired Mrs. Van Duser pointedly.

"I—looked it over, and—it appeared very——"

[Pg 50]

[Pg 50]

Mrs. Van Duser's steadfast gaze appeared to demand the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Elizabeth's eyes fell before it. "It was very good of you to—to think of me," she said.

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