I wondered. Do you mean she always has them black?
Dear no; Ive seen them blue, green, yellow. They may be what they like, so long as theyre always one other thing.
Hideous?
Mrs. Munden made a mouth for it. Hideous is too much to say; she doesnt really require them as bad as that. But consistently, cheerfully, loyally plain. Its really a most happy relation. She loves them for it.
And for what do they love her?
Why just for the amiability that they produce in her. Then also for their home. Its a career for them.
I see. But if thats the case, I asked, why are they so difficult to find?
Oh they must be safe; its all in that: her being able to depend on them to keep to the terms of the bargain and never have moments of risingas even the ugliest woman will now and then (say when shes in love)superior to themselves.
I turned it over. Then if they cant inspire passions the poor things maynt even at least feel them?
She distinctly deprecates it. Thats why such a man as you may be after all a complication.
I continued to brood. Youre very sure Miss Dadds ailment isnt an affection that, being smothered, has struck in? My joke, however, wasnt well timed, for I afterwards learned that the unfortunate ladys state had been, even while I spoke, such as to forbid all hope. The worst symptoms had appeared; she was destined not to recover; and a week later I heard from Mrs. Munden that she would in fact gurgle no more.
CHAPTER II
All this had been for Lady Beldonald an agitation so great that access to her apartment was denied for a time even to her sister-in-law. It was much more out of the question of course that she should unveil her face to a person of my special business with it; so that the question of the portrait was by common consent left to depend on that of the installation of a successor to her late companion. Such a successor, I gathered from Mrs. Munden, widowed childless and lonely, as well as inapt for the minor offices, she had absolutely to have; a more or less humble alter ago to deal with the servants, keep the accounts, make the tea and watch the window-blinds. Nothing seemed more natural than that she should marry again, and obviously that might come; yet the predecessors of Miss Dadd had been contemporaneous with a first husband, so that others formed in her image might be contemporaneous with a second. I was much occupied in those months at any rate, and these questions and their ramifications losing themselves for a while to my view, I was only brought back to them by Mrs. Mundens arrival one day with the news that we were all right againher sister-in-law was once more suited. A certain Mrs. Brash, an American relative whom she hadnt seen for years, but with whom she had continued to communicate, was to come out to her immediately; and this person, it appeared, could be quite trusted to meet the conditions. She was uglyugly enough, without abuse of it, and was unlimitedly good. The position offered her by Lady Beldonald was moreover exactly what she needed; widowed also, after many troubles and reverses, with her fortune of the smallest, and her various children either buried or placed about, she had never had time or means to visit England, and would really be grateful in her declining years for the new experience and the pleasant light work involved in her cousins hospitality. They had been much together early in life and Lady Beldonald was immensely fond of herwould in fact have tried to get hold of her before hadnt Mrs. Brash been always in bondage to family duties, to the variety of her tribulations. I daresay I laughed at my friends use of the term positionthe position, one might call it, of a candlestick or a sign-post, and I daresay I must have asked if the special service the poor lady was to render had been made clear to her. Mrs. Munden left me in any case with the rather droll image of her faring forth across the sea quite consciously and resignedly to perform it.