The attractive mouth smiled down upon Janet. Fair hair like her daughter's crowned the sensitive face. The dress was white, lacy about bare neck and arms. A necklace of pearls furnished adornment. "Why, how young you look, Mother," said Janet aloud. She was surprised. Mothers were old.
Glancing down at a graceful little table which stood under the picture, Janet saw a sheet of note paper. Some one, probably Cousin Diana, had written a message upon it.
"This is Jannet at nineteen, shortly before she was married. The gown is one that she wore at a recital where she 'sang like an angel', according to your father. Your mother lived in New York, studying voice, for a year. Your grandfather took an apartment there and your grandmother died there. Then they came back here, your uncle's family moved in, and your mother was married from here. She met your father in New York."
Some girls might have taken an immediate inventory of everything. Not so Janet. A little feeling of reverence and hesitation held her. She sat down in a chair near the table to think and to grow familiar with her mother's face. Then she noted a small silver vase of spring violets on top of a dark, old-fashioned highboy. She jumped up and put the violets beneath her mother's picture on the table. "I think that I shall keep some flowers there for you, Mother," she said.
Presently other things in the room challenged her attention. The dark highboy was a handsome piece of furniture. She slowly pulled out one of its curved drawers,--empty. Her own clothes could be put here, where that other Jannet's clothing was. One by one, Janet opened the drawers. In the bottom one a few unmounted photographs lay loosely. Eagerly Janet picked them up. Good! They were pictures of the place, the old house as it was,--and oh, this must be her mother and father! Why, did they have snap-shots _then_?
Of course they had snap-shots fifteen years or so ago! She must be crazy to think that her mother and father belonged to the antiques! What a bright, laughing face it was! They were hand in hand, the two young people, her mother in her wedding veil, her father so handsome in his wedding attire. Some one had snapped them outdoors, and her mother was in the act of curtseying, her arm stretched to her young husband, who held his wife's hand and bowed also, looking at his bride instead of at the camera.