On the back porch she met her father.
"Patricia," he asked, "what does this mean? Why did you run away when you saw your grandmother coming?"
Patricia gasped. "But, Daddy, she didn't come! I didn't see her! Oh, do you mean, was that—I expected she'd have on a bonnet tied under her chin—and a shawl—and glasses." Patricia was half crying again, her head on her father's shoulder.
It was hard to relinquish the picture of the grandmother she had been carrying in her mind for the past fortnight; a sort of composite picture of all the grandmothers she knew in Belham.
And the doctor, understanding, comforted her, sending her to freshen herself up again for supper, with the promise that it would all come right—she would see.
On the upper landing Patricia came face to face with grandmother; a grandmother who was tall and slender and dressed in some delicate gray material that rustled softly when she walked, and gave forth a faint scent of violets. There was very little gray in the dark wavy hair, that framed a face altogether different from the placid wrinkled one of Patricia's imaginings; but when Mrs. Cory said, "O Patricia!" and held out her arms, Patricia went to her at once.
They sat down on the broad window seat to get acquainted; Patricia hoped grandmother would not see she had been crying and how tumbled her clean dress was. Though Mrs. Cory saw, she said nothing, she had the gift of knowing what questions not to ask; only asking instead, "Patricia dear, who put that delightful bowl of flowers in my room?"
Patricia's color deepened. "I did—grandmother; I thought you would like them—they were," Patricia caught herself up, doubting now the appropriateness of those "old-ladyish" flowers.
Fortunately Custard appeared at that moment, wagging ingratiatingly; and grandmother at once responded to his overtures with a friendliness that warmed not only the heart of Custard but of Custard's small mistress.
Patricia went to bed that night with her thoughts rather in a whirl. "I suppose," she decided finally, "that she is one of those 'up-to-date grandmothers' one reads about; anyhow, she's a dear and I love her, and oh, Aunt Julia did behave beautifully about the punchbowl—she seemed to appreciate what a delicate situation it was—and I'll never, never take it again without asking."