"The dear child would come in a minute if I suggested it," said Virginia, "but she enjoys her life at college so much that I wouldn't have her give it up for anything in the world. It would make me miserable to think that any of my children made a sacrifice for me."
"You needn't worry. We've trained them differently," said Oliver, and though his tone was slightly satirical, the satire was directed at himself, not at his wife.
"I am sure it is what I should never want," insisted Virginia, almost passionately, while she rose in response to the announcement of supper, and met Lucy, in trailing pink chiffon, on the threshold.
"Are you sure your coat is warm enough, dear?" she asked. "Wouldn't you like to wear my furs? They are heavier than yours."
"Oh, I'd love to, if you wouldn't mind, mother."
Raising herself on tiptoe, Lucy kissed Harry, and then ran to the mirror, eager to see if the black fur looked well on her.
"They're just lovely on me, mother. I feel gorgeous!" she exclaimed triumphantly, and indeed her charming girlish face rose like a white flower out of the rich dark furs.
In Virginia's eyes, as she turned back in the doorway to watch her, there was a radiant self-forgetfulness which illumined her features. For a moment she lived so completely in her daughter's youth that her body seemed to take warmth and colour from the emotion which transfigured her.
"I am so glad, darling," she said. "It gives me more pleasure to see you in them than it does to wear them myself." And though she did not know it, she embodied her gentle philosophy of life in that single sentence.