CHAPTER VII
LUELLA’S HUMILIATION
The door was opened cautiously by the maid, who was “doing” Aunt Crete’s hair, having just finished a most refreshing facial massage given at Donald’s express orders.
Aunt Crete looked round upon her visitors with a rested, rosy countenance, which bloomed out under her fluff of soft, white hair, and quite startled her sister with its freshness and youth. Could it be possible that this was really her sister Crete; or had she made a terrible mistake, and entered the wrong apartment?
But a change came suddenly over the ruddy countenance of Aunt Crete as over the face of a child that in the midst of happy play sees a trouble descending upon it. A look almost of terror came over her, and she caught her breath, and waited to see what was coming.
“Why, Carrie, Luella!” she gasped weakly. “I thought you’d gone to bed. Marie’s just doing up my hair for night. She’s been giving me a face-massage. You ought to try one. It makes you feel young again.”
“H’m!” said her affronted sister. “I shouldn’t care for one.”
Marie looked over Luella and her mother, beginning with the painfully elaborate arrangement of hair, and going down to the tips of their boots. Luella’s face burned with mortification as she read the withering disapproval in the French woman’s countenance.
“Let’s sit down till she’s done,” said Luella, dropping promptly on the foot of Aunt Crete’s bed and gazing around in frank surprise over the spaciousness of the apartment.