Then, one day, taking a walk down Bond Street with her son, after
having been at Lord's, she noticed Edward suddenly turn his head
round to take a second look at a well-dressed girl who had passed
them. She wrote about that, too, to Mrs Powys, and expressed
some alarm. It had been, on Edward's part, the merest reflex
action. He was so very abstracted at that time owing to the
pressure his crammer was putting upon him that he certainly hadn't
known what he was doing.
It was this letter of Mrs Ashburnham's to Mrs Powys that had
caused the letter from Colonel Powys to Colonel Ashburnham--a
letter that was half-humorous, half longing. Mrs Ashburnham
caused her husband to reply, with a letter a little more
jocular--something to the effect that Colonel Powys ought to give
them some idea of the goods that he was marketing. That was the
cause of the photograph. I have seen it, the seven girls, all in white
dresses, all very much alike in feature--all, except Leonora, a little
heavy about the chins and a little stupid about the eyes. I dare say
it would have made Leonora, too, look a little heavy and a little
stupid, for it was not a good photograph. But the black shadow
from one of the branches of the apple tree cut right across her
face, which is all but invisible.
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