Page:Watts Mumford--Whitewash.djvu/20

 he's going to run them down, and they are so beautiful!"

The older woman disengaged herself from the tangle of Shorty's skirts. "You are perfectly insane, child; do sit still! You've taken at least four pictures without winding one off."

The girl gasped, "Oh, I believe you're right! Oh, dear! my beggars will be spoiled."

"They seemed pretty far gone already," Boston ejaculated.

Their carriage halted for a moment. A balky horse somewhere in the crowd ahead was determinedly holding back the procession. The crush had moved the Empire chaise alongside a well-appointed, green-bodied brougham, from whose window a slim woman, dressed in mourning, was anxiously leaning.

"It must be horribly dark inside the lady," murmured Victoria, in an undertone: "see how it pours out of her."

Sonia nodded, the description was so apt. Great troubled, black eyes lit up the woman's haggard face; bushy brows almost met over the thin, high bred nose; hair so intensely black that the widow's 16