A Silver Brand — page 38: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

30 : | A SILVER BRAND. and scantier, if possible, than Miss Rhoda’s, al- though all three wore the same little wizened knot pinned up behind with a monstrous shell comb that looked as incongruous as a giant’s helmet upon a ‘baby’s head. Paul meekly resigned his coat, and went back to scrape his feet a second time. By this time the sound of their voices had brought a pair of eyes to every door in the room, and there were four of the latter. | Two other Misses Foss appeared, very like the eldest, with the same thin, spare form, and in just such an immaculate print dress, with the very same style of wide muslin collar, snowy white, and pinned with exactness by a square, old-fashioned breastpin containing a twisted bow of gray hair. Closer scrutiny showed you that Rhoda entirely -lacked Theodosia’s energetic, commanding way, that she had a little nervous affection of the facial muscles, and a timid, irresolute smile with which she turned helplessly to: her sister at the slightest difficulty. Penelope, the youngest of the family, while she possessed the same features and general air, had yet a marked personality of herown. She had evidently been more comely than the others, her complexion was still fairer, her eyes larger, and it, seemed deeper, for when you. looked into them, which, to be sure, few people had ever, done, you read there a startling suggestion. She was nota woman like the others, her whole thought did not spend itself on the little details of housekeeping, the perpetual battle against dust, and wear, and tear. Somewhere, down deep in her soul, this ~ Penelope had another world whither the true woman retired to dream, in agony or ecstasy—who | but herself, could tell which? She was quiet in the house, talking far less than Rhoda, but yet, in her way, resisting Theodosia’s autocratic ways. Penelope and Paul were the closest friends of the household, although it was a little remarkable, for Paul was as tyrannical and authoritative in his way as Theodosia, with whom, from her very childhood, Penelope had seemed to clash. “comicbooks €O