But she had no time to think. Mrs. Winstone was talking rapidly. Julia wondered if the tropics had affected her aunt’s nerves. She was twirling her parasol, and her eyes had more intelligence in them than she usually admitted, save when conducting a dilettante Suffrage meeting.
“Really, Julia!” she exclaimed. “It’s too tiresome. But I didn’t expect the Royal Mail for hours yet; came down to see Hannah and Pirie at Bath House, and sent the horses to be shod. They’re not ready, and there’s nothin’ else—everybody drivin’. Do you think you could walk up the mountain in this heat?”
“Of course she can’t!” cried Fanny. “Of course she can’t!”
“I’m sure I could,” began Julia, but once more Fanny enveloped her.
“Oh, no, darling,” she cried entreatingly. “You’d faint in that heat—climbing. It was bad enough coming down. And, oh, I do want another glimpse of Bath House. You’ve no idea how excited I was all the time it was building. It was like an old romance come to life. But much good it has done me. And it has an orchestra!”
Julia laughed outright. Fanny might not possess the priceless gift of tact, but she was enchantingly young. Her exuberant youth, in fact, made everybody else feel superannuated, and her next remark, as she and Julia started for the hotel arm in arm, did not remove the impression.
“How oddly young you look, Aunt Julia,” observed the girl, whose large curious eyes were exploring every detail of Julia’s appearance. “Of course I knew you were much younger than Granny or Aunt Maria, or I shouldn’t have been so keen to have you come home, but you look almost a girl. I suppose it’s because you are quite a little thing and haven’t grown either scrawny or fat.”
“Really,” said her aunt, dryly, “I’m five feet three and a half, and thirty-four is a long way from old age.”
“Well, it’s not young,” said Fanny, who appeared to be of a hopelessly literal turn. “Thirty-four! Why you are only a year younger than mother would have been.”
This remark touched a chord which for the moment routed anxious vanity. Julia put her arm about Fanny’s waist, no slenderer than her own. “I wish you were mine!” she said fondly. “But sister is the next best thing. I can’t have you calling me aunt. That is much too remote—I have wanted you for so many years. You must imagine that you are my little sister, and call me Julia. Will you?”