“How lovely you are, Aunt Katherine.” Elsie gave her tribute spontaneously in as cool a way as though the scene upstairs had never taken place; and Kate echoed “Lovely, Aunt Katherine.”
Miss Frazier was touched. “Thank you, my dears,” she said. “And I can return the compliment. In fact, Madame Pearl has outdone herself!”
Miss Frazier deserved their tribute. She was both handsome and distinguished looking, with her graying hair done high and topped with a jewelled comb that sent out shivers of light whenever she moved, gowned in softest lilac-coloured silk draped with black lace, and wearing a long black lace scarf in a most regal manner. The lilac, the green, and the crocus-yellow figures that passed into the dining-room arm-in-arm caused the waitress Effie the most wide-eyed admiration.
“And they were as friendly, just as friendly as could be,” she told the kitchen when she removed the service plates. “You’d think Miss Frazier was their mother, she’s that affectionate. Why, it’s like a regular family to-night!”
Julia, handing out hot dishes, beamed. “Perhaps everything’s coming right, after all,” she said. “Katherine’s child will shed sunshine all about just as Katherine did.”
Bertha, sitting at a distant table playing cards with Timothy and the gardener, sniffed at that. “Miss Elsie is as capable of shedding sunshine as anybody,” she said, defensively. “She’s just made of it herself. I’m always telling you.”
“Yes, you’re always telling. But we’re never seeing,” Julia retorted. “Touched with melancholy, she seems to me, but as nice as you please. Only not cheerful to have about. It’s probably her poor mother’s awful death. Her heart’s broke.”
Bertha shook her head. “I don’t think her heart’s broken. She’s as gay as anything alone with me sometimes! And she’s the most generous child living.”
“She does funny things, though,” Timothy offered his bit. “Carrying groceries up to her room, buying eggs and bread and stuff and paying for ’em herself. Holt told me.”
Bertha looked at him, unbelieving. “Groceries in her room? No such thing. Who takes care of her room, do you think? I never saw such a thing in it. What do you mean?”