something."

"What?"

"Do you really think Miss Farrel's color is natural?"

"I don't know. It looks so."

"I know it does, but I had it real straight that she keeps some pink
stuff that she uses in a box as bold as can be, right in sight on her
wash-stand."

"I don't know anything about it," said Mrs. Ayres, in her weary,
gentle fashion. "I have heard, of course, that some women do use such
things, but none of my folks ever did, and I never knew anybody else
who did."

Then Sylvia opened upon the subject which had brought her there. She
had reached it by a process as natural as nature itself.

"I know one thing," said she: "I have no opinion of that woman. I
can't have. When I hear a woman saying such things as I have heard of
her saying about a girl, when I know it isn't true, I make up my mind
those things are true about the woman herself, and she's talking
about herself, because she's got to let it out, and she makes believe
it's somebody else."

Mrs. Ayres's face took on a strange expression. Her sweet eyes
hardened and narrowed. "What do you mean?" she asked, sharply.