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Page 29
As she spoke she slipped on a loose protecting garment above her lilac
daintiness, and waved an inviting hand to her guest, smiling so coaxingly
that Miss Mathewson yielded without another word of protest. When the
hairpins came out, and the mass of fair hair fell upon the shoulders,
Ellen exclaimed with hearty admiration:
"I knew it was wonderful hair, but I didn't dream there was such a
wealth. My dear, why do you wear it in such a tight fashion, as if you
wanted everybody to think there wasn't much of it? Do let me try dressing
it for you in a way I know, which it seems to me would just suit your
face. Have you always worn it coiled on top of your head, and shall you
feel very strange and uncomfortable if I arrange it lower?"
"Do it as you like, Mrs. Burns, since you will be so kind. But don't
expect me not to feel strange, wearing your clothes and staying to
dinner. Do you realize how far from society I've lived, all these years
that I've been nursing for Dr. Burns?"
"I know you are a lady, and that is quite enough. And our simple dinner
isn't 'society,' it's home. Now, please keep quite still, and don't
distract my mind, while I lay these smooth strands in place. I want every
one to lie in just this shining order."
Ellen worked at her self-appointed task with all the interest of the born
artist, who has an ever-present dream of things as they ought to look.
When the last confining pin was in place she viewed the fair head before
her from every point, then clapped her hands delightedly, and presented
Miss Mathewson with a hand-mirror.
"You must get the side view, then you'll recognize how these new lines
bring out that distinguished profile that's been obscured all this time.
Do you see? Do you know yourself, my dear? Won't you always wear it this
way, to please me?"
"But I never could do it myself, in the world," pleaded Amy Mathewson,
her cheeks again flooding with colour at the strange sight of herself.
"It's perfectly simple, and I'll teach you with pleasure,--only not now,
for we must hurry. I'll slip the frock over your head without disturbing
a hair, and then we'll go down, for I want a bit of a blaze on the hearth
in the living-room, to offset this dull-gray sky."
On went the frock in question, a "simple" one, undoubtedly, but of
the sort of simplicity which tells its own story to the initiated.
Whether its new wearer recognized or not its perfection of detail, she
could but see that it suited her to a nicety, both in hue--a soft apricot
shade--and in its absence of elaboration. Its effect was to soften every
line of the face above it, and to set off its wearer's delicate colouring
as the white uniforms could never do.
"Don't you quite dare to look at her?" questioned the self-appointed
lady's maid, merrily, as she led her charge to stand in front of a long
mirror, set in a door.
"Hardly." Miss Mathewson raised eyes grown suddenly shy to view her own
image in the glass, gave her back a picture such as she had never dreamed
could be made by herself, under any conditions whatever. Over her
shoulder her employer's wife smiled at her.
"She looks very charming, to me, however she looks to you. But I won't
force her to stare long at such a stranger. It might make it difficult
for her to forget the stranger afterward, which is what I want her to
do."
Ellen ran away to make herself ready once more, and returning put her arm
about her guest's waist, in the friendly way of her own which came still
more naturally now that the uniform was gone. Together the two descended
the stairs to the living-room, there to await the arrival of Burns and
his friend.
This took place about three quarters of an hour after it was to be
expected, as Red Pepper's arrivals usually did, whether accompanied or
not by invited guests. The two came in laughing together over some
reminiscence, and Ellen recognized the tall, distinguished figure she
well remembered, with the clean-cut features, the fine eyes rather deep
set under heavy brows, the firm yet sensitive mouth. Yet, after a moment,
as Dr. John Leaver stood talking with her, she observed a careworn look,
a dimming of the fresh, clear colour she had noted on former meetings;
altogether in his whole aspect she found more than a suggestion of undue
fatigue, and when the smile ceased to light his face, even of sadness
quite unwonted.
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