Explore "An Act in a Backwater" by E.F. Benson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Phœbe had not been very kind when she heard that her sister had been so bold-faced, as she called it, to ask Jack Collingwood for a sketch. "You don't know what interpretation might be put on such a thing," she said, and indeed it was difficult to conjecture. But Clara attributed this severity as much to the tooth-ache as anything else, and in point of fact when the picture arrived, Phœbe, who would usually spend a quarter of an hour over untying a knot rather than cut it, fetched the scissors in less than no time, and behaved as if string was not a precious metal.
"It is kind of him," said Clara. "See what a size, Phœbe! though perhaps that may be mostly frame. I know artists are very fond of putting large frames on small pictures. Oh, dear, there is another wrapper!"