CHAPTER XIVThe family had assembled in Miss Paradine’s sitting-room, a pleasantly furnished room with deep blue curtains and upholstery. There was a fine old walnut bureau and some Queen Anne chairs, and half a dozen moderately good watercolours on the plain cream walls. But what took the eye and held it were the photographs in every size and aspect, from babyhood to what magazine articles call present day, of Phyllida. There was, to be sure, one remarkable omission. Phyllida in her wedding dress was not represented by so much as a snapshot. The photographs ceased with Phyllida Paradine. There was none of Phyllida Wray. It was only a stranger, however, who would have been struck by this. The family were too used to it to take any notice, and it was the family who were assembled—Grace Parad
