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278 'Comes out! I should think so! It's like little black spots all over auntie's face. Such a guy as she looks in it!'

'And Colonel Clay is in them too?'

'Yes; I took them when he and auntie were talking together, without either of them noticing. And Bertie developed them. I've three of David Granton. Three beauties; most successful.'

'Any other character?' I asked, seeing business ahead.

Dolly hung back, still redder. 'Well, the rest are with Aunt Isabel,' she answered, after a struggle.

'My dear child,' I replied, hiding my feelings as a husband, 'I will be brave. I will bear up even against that last misfortune!'

Dolly looked up at me pleadingly. 'It was here in London,' she went on; '—when I was last with auntie. Medhurst was stopping in the house at the time; and I took him twice, tête-à-tête with Aunt Isabel!'

'Isabel does not paint,' I murmured, stoutly. Dolly hung back again. 'No, but—her hair!' she suggested, in a faint voice.

'Its colour,' I admitted, 'is in places assisted by a—well, you know, a restorer.'

Dolly broke into a mischievous sly smile. 'Yes, it is,' she continued. 'And, oh, Uncle Sey, where the restorer has—er—restored it, you know, it comes out in the photograph with a sort of brilliant iridescent metallic sheen on it!'