Dr. Bellair's voice sounded clear and insistent in the next room.
"She's trying to persuade Aunt Rella to go West!" said Susie. "Wouldn't it be funny if she did!"
In Susie's eyes her Aunt's age was as the age of mountains, and also her fixity. Since she could remember, Aunt Rella, always palely pretty and neat, like the delicate, faintly-colored Spring flowers of New England, had presided over the small white house, the small green garden and the large black and white school-room. In her vacation she sewed, keeping that quiet wardrobe of hers in exquisite order—and also making Susie's pretty dresses. To think of Aunt Orella actually "breaking up housekeeping," giving up her school, leaving Bainville, was like a vision of trees walking.
To Dr. Jane Bellair, forty-one, vigorous, successful, full of new plans and purposes, Miss Elder's life appeared as an arrested girlhood, stagnating unnecessarily in this quiet town, while all the world was open to her.
"I couldn't think of leaving Susie!" protested Miss Orella.
"Bring her along," said the doctor. "Best thing in the world for her!"
She rose and came to the door. The two girls make a pretty picture. Vivian's oval face, with its smooth Madonna curves under the encircling wreath of soft, dark plaits, and the long grace of her figure, delicately built, yet strong, beside the pink, plump little Susie, roguish and pretty, with the look that made everyone want to take care of her.
"Come in here, girls," said the doctor. "I want you to help me. You're young enough to be movable, I hope."
They cheerfully joined the controversy, but Miss Orella found small support in them.
"Why don't you do it, Auntie!" Susie thought it an excellent joke. "I suppose you could teach school in Denver as well as here. And you could Vote! Oh, Auntie—to think of your Voting!"