“Come here, my little Ethel!” said her grandmother. When the girl stood before her, she took both of her hands. “This friend — this young man — is waiting for you?”
Ethel flushed, but she answered with the fine honesty that had been hers all her life.
“Yes!” she said, in just the sturdy, defiant tone she used to confess a piece of childish mischief years and years ago.
“You see me here,” said Mrs. Mazetti, “unable even to rise from my chair. I could do nothing to stop you, if I wished. I do not wish, because I trust you; only I ask you to tell me a little.”
Ethel was more moved than she wished to be. She bent to kiss the soft white hair.
“I’d rather not, please!” she said.
“If you will remember, my little Ethel, that your mother always came to me, always told me what troubled her! I am very old. I have learned very much, seen very much. I could help you.”
“But you wouldn’t, grandmother. You wouldn’t like my—plan.”
“Then perhaps I could make a better one.”
Mrs. Mazetti felt the girl’s warm hands tremble, and saw her lip quiver. She waited, terribly anxious.