"You're well enough as you are," I said.
But she went, smiling; and I hardly missed her, I was so busy with my own thoughts.
One for you, and one for you, but never, never one for me?
I must have hummed the words aloud, for her voice answered me, at the door.
"Never's a long word, isn't it?"
I looked up.
A neat little figure stood on the threshold between the two rooms, the same neat little figure I had seen constantly during the past eight weeks. But it was not the same face. She had said, lightly, that she was going to "make herself pretty," and she had. She had performed a miracle. Or else I was asleep and dreaming.
The gray hair, folded in wings, was gone; the blue glasses were gone; the big bow under the chin was gone. A pretty young woman was smiling at me with the pretty little mouth I knew; but I did not know the bright auburn hair, or the beautiful brown eyes that threw me an amazing challenge.
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed.
"You told me you didn't want your aunt any more," said she.