The woman set down her lamp on a little table and lumbered about the room, adjusting the shades at the windows, while the lamp threw grotesque exaggerations on the wall. Elliott watched the shadows, a warm little smile at her heart. They were funny, but she found herself tender toward them. When the woman padded back to the bed the girl smiled, her cheek pillowed on her hand. She liked her there beside the bed, her big shapeless form totally obscuring the straight-backed chair. She didn’t think of waist lines or clothes at all, only of how comfortable 175 and cushiony and pleasant the large face looked. Mothery—might not that be the word for it? Somehow like Aunt Jessica, yet without the slightest resemblance except in expression, a kind of radiating lovingness that warmed one through and through, and made everything right, no matter how wrong it might have seemed.
“I telephoned your Aunt Jessica,” said the big woman. “She was just going to call us, and they all sent their love to you. Here’s Harriet with the milk. Do you feel a mite hungry?”
“I think that must be what was the matter with me. I was trying to decide when you came in.”
The fat form shook all over with silent laughter. It was fascinating to watch laughter that produced such a cataclysm but made no sound. Elliott forgot to drink in her absorption.
“Mother,” said Harriet Gordon, “Elliott thinks you’re a three-ringed circus. 176 You mustn’t be so exciting till she has finished her milk.”
Elliott protested, startled. “I think you are the kindest people in the world, both of you!”
“Mercy, child, anybody would have done the same! Don’t you go to setting us up on pedestals for a little thing like that.”
The fat girl was smiling. “Make it singular, mother. I have no quarrel with a pedestal for you, though it might be a little awkward to move about on.”
Mrs. Gordon shook again with that fascinating laughter. “Mercy me! I’d tip off first thing and then where would we all be?”
Elliott’s eyes sought Harriet Gordon’s. If she had observed closely she would have seen spots on the white dress, but to-night she was not looking at clothes. She only thought what a kind face the big girl had and how extraordinarily pleasant her voice was and what good friends she 177 and her mother were, just like Laura and Aunt Jessica, only different.