sisters rose and made a hasty adieu.

“We came in the governess cart. The pony gets restless—mustn’t keep him waiting. Thank you so much! Goodbye!”

They were gone; the outer door was shut behind them. Darsie, standing by the tea-table, caught a glimpse of her own reflection in a mirror at the opposite end of the room, a stiff, Dutch-doll of a figure, with plastered hair, crimson cheeks, and plain frock. She glanced at Aunt Maria reseating herself in her high-backed chair, and taking up the inevitable knitting. Now for it! now for the lecture! Well, after all, she had only done what had been suggested, a trifle more perhaps than had been suggested, but that was erring on the right side, not the wrong. Besides, if a naughty impulse to annoy and humiliate Aunt Maria had really existed, in the end she had been a thousand times more humiliated herself. And now, if you please, she was to be scolded and lectured into the bargain!

But Aunt Maria neither lectured nor scolded. All through that next hour when pride kept Darsie chained to her place, the older lady talked in her most natural manner, and even smiled at her companion across the patience-board without a flicker of expression to betray that the figure confronting her was in any way different from the one which she was accustomed to see.

Once more admiration vanquished irritation, and Darsie roused herself to join in the problem of “building,” and ended in actually feeling a dawning of interest in what had hitherto appeared the dreariest of problems. When seven o’clock struck, and the old lady closed the board, and said, in her natural, every-day voice, “And now we must dress for dinner!” Darsie walked slowly across the room, hesitated, and finally retraced her steps and knelt down on a footstool by Lady Hayes’ side.

“Aunt Maria—please! I should like to thank you!”

“Thank me, my dear. For what?”

“For—for saying nothing! For not crowing over me as you might have done!”

The flushed, upturned face was very sweet—all the sweeter perhaps for the plastered hair, which gave to it so quaint and old-world an air. Lady Hayes laid a wrinkled hand on the girl’s shoulder; her eyes twinkled humorously through her spectacles.

“No, I won’t crow, my dear! That would be ungenerous. Circumstances have been pretty hard on you already. This—this little exhibition was not intended for an audience, but for my own private edification. 

 Prev. P 53/208 next