The old lady shot an upward glance at her. "I wish I could say the same for you," she returned.
Augusta drew back her head with an offended air and surveyed her own reflection. Really, Mama was very short with one! It took a lot of patience. . . .
Adeline stretched out her ringed hand and took the velvet-framed photograph of her Philip from the dresser. She looked at it for some moments, kissed it, and set it in its place.
"What a handsome man Papa was!" said Augusta, and surreptitiously wiped the picture with her handkerchief.
"He was. Put the picture down."
"Indeed, all our men are good-looking!"
"Aye, we're a shapely lot. I'm ready. Fetch Nick and Ernest."
Her sons were soon at her side, Nicholas walking less heavily than usual because his gout was not troubling him. They almost lifted her from her chair. She took an arm of each and said over her shoulder to Augusta, "Bring the bird along! Poor Boney, he's dull to-day."
The little procession moved along the hall so slowly that it seemed to Augusta, carrying the bird on his perch, that they were only marking time. But they were really moving, and at last had shuffled their way to where the light fell full upon them through the coloured glass window.
"Rest here a bit," said their mother. "I'm tired." She was tall, but looked a short woman between her sons, she was so bent.
She glanced up at the window. "I like to see the light coming through there," she observed. "It's very pretty."
They were in the drawing-room, and she was established in her own chair, with Boney on his perch beside her. Mr. Fennel rose, but he gave her time to recover her breath before coming forward to take her hand and inquire after her health.
"I'm quite well," she said. "Don't know what it is to have any pain, except a little wind on the stomach.
