Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/211

In Dull Brown

"All the same," said Nancy, who was lazily sipping her coffee in bed, "brown doesn't suit you a bit."

"No," said Jean sadly, "and I should not be wearing it at all if my other skirt did not want brushing. Nevertheless, a russet-brown frock demands adventures. The girls in novels always wear russet-brown, whatever their complexion is, and they always have adventures. Now———"

"Isn't it time you started?" asked the gentle voice of her sister. Jean glanced at the clock and said something in English that was not classical.

"I shall have to take an omnibus. Bother!" she said, and the heroine of the russet-brown frock made an abrupt and undignified exit.

It was a fine warm morning in November, the sort of day that follows a week of stormy wet weather as though to cheat the unwary into imagining that the spring instead of the winter is on its way. The pavements were still wet from yesterday's rain, the trees in the park stood stripped by yesterday's gale; only the sun and the sparrows kept up the illusion that it was never going to rain any more. But the caprices of the atmosphere made no impression on the people who cannot help being out; and Jean, as she made the fourteenth passenger on the top of an omnibus, hada vague