When Mrs. Gresham and Mrs. Dudley were face to face with the “strongest asset” they recalled Polly’s statement in some surprise.
Mrs. Gresham had intuitively pictured the caretaker as middle-aged, plump, and comfortable, with a benevolent smile and a gracious manner. The woman who stood before them was tall, straight, and lean, with a small head and high cheek-bones. Her abundant brown hair was drawn smoothly back from her low forehead and wound into a tight coil on top of her head. Her frankly curious eyes of light gray appeared to size up her visitors in one unafraid glance, and she extended a big, work-hard hand with a drawling “How d’ ye do?”
So this was Benedicta!
Polly chanced to make a trivial remark, and Mrs. Gresham turned with relief.
Although the visitors had stopped on the way for luncheon, the housekeeper insisted that they should “stay to dinner,” and already a small table in the living-room was most attractively set with appointments for three.
“Yes, Benedicta can cook,” Mrs. Gresham mentally conceded, as she ate with relish the broiled chicken, creamed pease, hot rye muffins with home-made butter, red raspberry pie, and hot coffee topped with whipped cream.
Nor did she withhold her praise; upon which Benedicta expanded like a flower which needs only the sunshine to bloom into beauty. Not that in the one happy moment the cook grew handsome, or that she expressed her thanks in suitable words. Only her small eyes grew bright and soft, her thin cheeks reddened with pleasure, as she said, almost scornfully, “Amazin’ly astounding ’f I didn’t know how to cook! Been at it since I was an infant.”
Opinions are versatile notions at best. After that informal meal on Overlook Mountain the critical wife of Colonel Gresham looked at Benedicta in a humorous and therefore fairer light, and the light in which a person is viewed makes all the difference in one’s opinion of him.
The next day when the party started for home the Von Winkelried property had passed into the hands of Mrs. Gresham, and the Children’s House of Joy was in legal possession of a mountain summer home.