"Why, Val!" she exclaimed in genuine astonishment. "Your hair is perfectly lovely! Never, never cover it up any more!"
"Really?" said Val shyly and flushing deep rose. "Do you think I might go without the veil now?"
"Do I think! Look at yourself!" She gave Val a gentle push towards her mirror, where the pale oval face was reflected, a very girlish face still in spite of sorrows, and framed now in a nebulous, wavering frame of feathery, fluttering curls.
"I never saw anything so dear," said Harriott, dipping her hand into the airy softness. "It is ten times prettier than it was before. How on earth did you manage it?"
"It must be the salad oil," said Val laughing. "I 've rubbed in a whole quart bottle during the winter. Poor Bran! Many is the morning he has come sniffing to my pillow with the question, 'Did you have potato salad for supper last night, Mammie?' Is n't it extraordinary what we women will do for vanity's sake, Harry. You 'd think I ought to know better at thirty-two, wouldn't you?"
"Thirty-two, what's that? Women are only just beginning to find themselves at thirty. You 're an infant still, my dear, and fortunately you look it." She added inconsequently, "I think that man of yours must be a pig."
A grave sadness came back into Val's face.
"Never say anything like that, Harry. Those are the kind of words that separate friends."
For a moment Mrs. Kesteven regarded her reproachfully, but her soul was too loyal a one to misunderstand Val's feelings. There was a great soul-likeness between the two women. Only that Val would be always more or less primitive, while Harriott Kesteven had come of a long line of cultivated ancestors, and was more highly civilised. But in the simple elementary things the two felt and saw alike.
"Forgive me, dearest," she said gently. "It is only that I hate to see you so alone--and lonely. You were not meant for such a life."