"Money, what is money?" returned Fanny blithely, her aplomb completely restored. "You can't keep it nowadays. It just rots if you try. No more old stocking!" And then she proceeded to throw that practiced eye of hers over the coat.... Any niece with a beloved aunt.
"Come here," she next cried to Maria and pointed out a button that needed changing, Tante Ilde was even thinner than they thought, "bring some pins."
Down on her silken knees she went and put the pin where the button was to be sewed on again.
Tante Ilde quite forgot that the family instinctively lowered their voices when speaking of Fanny. She was her brother's child again, her own little Fannerl, the sweet, soft, laughing, incredibly, brightly, beautiful maiden of those far away days. Ah, she should have married a prince!
"You are an angel," she said tremulously keeping back with difficulty some tears that lay heavily just behind her eyes.
"'Angel' is going a bit far," answered Fanny modestly, though really delighted in her heart, and she wondered for the thousandth time what on earth they would have done without her.
"I'm not going out," she said crisply to Maria, "the devil can take the Bristol. I'm going to stay with Tante Ilde. Bring another cover, and quick, I'm sure she's hungry,—I'm nearly starved." This last wasn't quite true, for not so very long before Maria had taken in Fanny's tray with coffee and cream and a glossy, buttery gipfel, got, Maria and the cuckoo alone knew from where.
"You look so tired, Auntie dear," said Fanny next.
Her aunt's face was, indeed, quite pinched and very pale in spite of the fresh glow of her heart, near which, between her shoulders was that increasingly unpleasant, stabbing sort of pain. But she was a game old lady. She hadn't yet complained about anything, so she only answered:
"A bit of a cold coming on, that's all."