“It is beautiful, beautiful,” she said, looking down and smoothing the cloth tenderly as if it had been his cheek. “It’s much too beautiful for me. Donald, you will spoil me.”
“Yes, I should think so,” sniffed Luella, as if offering an apology in some sort for her childish aunt.
“A little spoiling won’t hurt you, dear aunt,” said Donald seriously. “I don’t believe you’ve had your share of spoiling yet, and I mean to give it to you if I can. Doesn’t she look pretty in it, Cousin Luella? Come now, Aunt Carrie, I suppose it’s time to go down to dinner, or we sha’n’t get through in time for the fun. Are you sure your ankle is quite well? Are you able to go to the Casino to-night? I’ve tickets for us all. Sousa’s orchestra is to be there, and the programme is an unusually fine one.”
Luella was mortified and angry beyond words, but a chance to go to the Casino, in company with Clarence Grandon and his mother, was not to be lightly thrown away; and she crushed down her mortification, contenting herself with darting an angry glance and a hateful curl of her lip at Aunt Crete as they went out the door together. This, however, was altogether lost on that little woman, for she was watching her nephew’s face, and wondering how it came that such joy had fallen to her lot.
There was no chance for the mortified mother and daughter to exchange a word as they went down in the elevator or followed in the wake of their relatives, before whom all porters and office-boys and even head waiters bowed, and jumped to offer assistance. They were having their wish, to be sure, entering the dining-hall behind the handsome young man and the elegant, gray-clad, fashionably coiffured old lady, a part of the train, with the full consciousness of “belonging,” yet in what a way! Both were having ample opportunity for reflection, for they could see at a glance that no one noticed them, and all attention was for those ahead of them.
Luella bit her lip angrily, and looked in wonder at Aunt Crete, who somehow had lost her dumpiness, and walked as gracefully beside her tall young nephew as if she had been accustomed to walk in the eyes of the world thus for years. The true secret of her grace, if Luella had but known it, was that she was not thinking in the least of herself. Her conscience was at rest now, for the meeting between the cousins was over, and Luella was to have a good time too. Aunt Crete was never the least bit selfish. It seemed to her that her good time was only blooming into yet larger things, after all.
Behind her walked her sister and niece in mortified humiliation. Luella was trying to recall just what she had said about “country cousins” over the telephone, and exactly what she had said to the girl in the pony-cart the morning she left home. The memory did not serve to cool her already heated complexion. It was beginning to dawn upon her that she had made a mighty mistake in running away from such a cousin and in such a manner.
All her life, in such a case, Luella had been accustomed to lay the blame of her disappointments upon some one else, and vent, as it were, her spite upon that one. Now, in looking about to find such an object of blame her eyes naturally fell upon the one that had borne the greater part of all blame for her. But, try as she would to pour out blame and scorn from her large, bold eyes upon poor Aunt Crete, somehow the blame seemed to slip off from the sweet gray garments, and leave Aunt Crete as serene as ever, with her eyes turned trustingly toward her dear Donald. Luella was brought to the verge of vexation by this, and could scarcely eat any dinner.
The dessert was just being served when the waiter brought Aunt Crete a dainty note from which a faint perfume of violets stole across the table to the knowing nostrils of Luella.
With the happy abandonment of a child Aunt Crete opened it joyously.