"Susan," she called to a girl sewing in the next room, "come and wash this little visitor's hands and face. She has come all the way from Salem this morning. I wish we had a fresh frock for you, but we have no little girls."
The voice was so soft and charming that Cynthia looked up with a kind of admiring smile.
Susan took off her frock, bathed her face and hands with some perfumed water, brushed out her hair, and said, "What lovely hair you have, and so much of it. A queen might envy you!"
The idea of a queen wanting anything she had! Oh, how nice and refreshed she felt.
Susan shook out the frock and put it on again, pulled out the sleeves, smoothed the wrinkled skirt, and took her in the next room.
"It rests one so much. Are you hungry? We shall have dinner in half an hour."
"Oh, no," Cynthia said. "And—and I am very much obliged to Susan."
"Come and sit here. Tell me how the aunties are—the one with the broken limb."
"I think she isn't so well. Yesterday she was so much improved. The doctor was there this morning."
"Poor lady! She has been ill a long while. And you are quite at home in Salem, I suppose? You had a long journey. Did you like India?"