Mrs. Hubert,
obeying an impulse of curiosity, stopped to speak to the little
Marshall girl, about whose queer upbringing there were so many stories
current, and was struck with the decorative possibilities of the
pretty child, apparent to her practised eye. As she made the kindly
intended, vague remarks customarily served out to unknown children,
she was thinking: "How _can_ any woman with a vestige of a woman's
instinct dress that lovely child in ready-made, commonplace,
dark-colored clothes? She would repay any amount of care and
"thought." So you take music-lessons too, besides your school?" she
asked mechanically. She explained to her sister, a stranger in La
Chance: "Music is one of the things I _starve_ for, out here! We never
hear it unless we go clear to Chicago--and such prices! Here, there is
simply _no_ musical feeling!" She glanced again at Sylvia, who was
now answering her questions, fluttered with pleasure at having the
beautiful lady speak to her. The beautiful lady had but an inattentive
ear for Sylvia's statement that, yes, lately Father had begun to give
her lessons on the piano. With the smoothly working imagination coming
from a lifetime of devotion to the subject, Mrs. Hubert was stripping
off Sylvia's trite little blue coat and uninteresting dark hat, and
was arraying her in scarlet serge with a green velvet collar--"with
those eyes and that coloring she could carry off striking 'color
combinations--and a big white felt hat with a soft pompon of silk
on one side--no, a long, stiff, scarlet quill would suit her style
better.
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