"Now that is Aunt Gretta exactly," said Helen, as Miss Teller left the room. "When you are once accustomed to her height and blonde caps, you will find her soft as a down coverlet."
Here Miss Teller returned. "My dear," she said, anxiously, addressing Anne, "as to soap for the hands—what kind do you prefer?"
"Anne's hands are beautiful, and she will have the white soap in the second box on the first shelf of the store-room—the rose; not the heliotrope, which is mine," said Helen, taking one of the young girl's hands, and spreading out the firm taper fingers. "See her wrists! Now my wrists are small too, but then there is nothing but wrist all the way up."
"My dear, your arms have been much admired," said Miss Margaretta, with a shade of bewilderment in her voice.
"Yes, because I choose they shall be. But when I spoke of Anne's hands, I spoke artistically, aunt."
"Do you expect Mr. Blum to-day?" said Miss Teller.
"Oh no," said Helen, smiling. "Mr. Blum, Anne, is a poor artist whom Aunt Gretta is cruel enough to dislike."
"Not on account of his poverty," said Miss Margaretta, "but on account of my having half-brothers, with large families, all with weak lungs, taking cold, I may say, at a breath—a mere breath; and Mr. Blum insists upon coming here without overshoes when there has been a thaw, and sitting all the evening in wet boots, which naturally makes me think of my brothers' weak families, to say nothing of the danger to himself."
"Well, Mr. Blum is not coming. But Mr. Heathcote is."
"Ah."