"Neither, my dear, just at this moment," said Mrs. Pryor, vivaciously. "I must just take a glance around. Dear me! how many years is it since I have been in this house? Had Phoebe aged as much as you have, Vesta? Single women, of course, always age faster,--no young life to keep them girlish. Ah! you must see my two sweet girls. Angels, Vesta! and Darracotts to their finger-ends. I feel like a child again, positively like a child. The parlor is exactly as I remember it, only faded. Things do fade so, don't they? It's a mistake not to keep your furniture fresh and up to date. I should re-cover those chairs, if I were you; nothing would be easier. A few yards of something bright and pretty, a few brass-headed nails--why, I could do it in a couple of hours. We must see what we can do, Vesta. And it is a pity, it seems to me, to have everything so bare, tables and all. Beautiful polish, to be sure, but they look so bleak. A chenille cover, now, here and there, a bright drape or two, would transform this room; all this old red damask is terribly antiquated, my dear. It comes of having no young life about you, as I said. My girls have such taste! You should see our parlor at home--not an inch but is covered with something bright and æsthetic. Ah! here are the portraits. Yes, to be sure. Do you know, Vesta, I have often thought of writing to you and Phoebe--in fact, I was on the point of it when the sad news came of poor Phoebe's being taken--about these portraits of Grandfather and Grandmother Darracott. Grandmother Darracott left them to your branch, I am well aware of that; but justice is justice, and I do think we ought to have one of them. We have just as much Darracott blood in our veins as you have, and you and Phoebe were always Blyth all over, while the Darracott nose and chin show so strongly in me and my children. You have no children, Vesta, and I always think it is the future generations that should be considered. We are passing away, my dear,--in the midst of life, you know, and poor Phoebe's death reminds us of it, I'm sure, more than ever--you don't look as if you had more than a year or two before you yourself, Vesta,--but--well--and so--I confess it seems to me as if you might feel more at ease in your mind if we had one of the portraits. Of course I should be willing to pay something, though I always think it a pity for money to pass between blood relations. What do you say?" She paused, somewhat out of breath, and sat creaking and clinking, and fanning herself with a Chinese hand-screen.