* * * * * CHAPTER XVI. ANOTHER VISIT About two weeks afterward the Mowbrays called again. Edith was a little surprised at this, for she had not expected another visit; but on the whole she felt glad, and could not help indulging in some vague hope that this call would be for her good. “I am sorry,” said she to Mrs. Mowbray, “that I have not been able to return your call. But I have already explained how I am imprisoned here.” [Illustration: “IT WAS A CHILD.”] “Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “pray don't speak of that. We feel for you, I assure you. Nothing is more unpleasant than a bereavement. It makes such a change in all one's life, you know. And then black does not become some people; they persist in visiting, too; but then, do you know, they really look to me like perfect frights. Not that you look otherwise than well, dear Miss Dalton. In fact, I should think that in any dress you would look perfectly charming; but that is because you are a brunette. Some complexions are positively out of all keeping with black. Have you ever noticed that? Oh yes, dear Miss Dalton,” continued Mrs. Mowbray, after a short pause. “Brunettes are best in black--mark my words, now; and blondes are never effective in that color. They do better in bright colors. It is singular, isn't it? You, now, my dear, may wear black with impunity; and since you are called on in the mysterious dispensation of Providence to mourn, you ought at least to be grateful that you are a brunette. If you were a blonde, I really do not know what would ever become of you. Now, I am a blonde--but in spite of that I have been called on to mourn. It--it was a child.” As Mrs. Mowbray said this she applied the handkerchief and smelling-bottle for a few minutes. “A child!” said Edith, in wonder. “Yes, dear--a sweet son, aged twelve, leaving me to mourn over him. And as I was saying, my mourning did not become my complexion at all. That was what troubled me so. Really, a blonde ought never to lose friends--it is so unbecoming. Positively, Providence ought to arrange things differently.” “It would be indeed well if blondes or any other people could be saved from sorrow,” said Edith. “It would be charming, would it not?” said Mrs. Mowbray. “Now, when my child died, I mourned for him most deeply--indeed, as deep as that,” she said, stretching out her hands so as to measure a space of about eighteen inches--“most deeply: a border around the skirt of solid crape half a yard wide; bonnet smothered in crape; and really and positively I myself was literally all crape, I do believe; and with my light complexion, what people could have thought, I'm sure I do not know.”