“How should I wear it, dear?”
“I don’t know; differently from that. You should draw it differently over your shoulders, round your elbows; you should look differently behind.”
“How should I look?” Charlotte inquired.
“I don’t think I can tell you,” said Gertrude, plucking out the scarf a little behind. “I could do it myself, but I don’t think I can explain it.”
Charlotte, by a movement of her elbows, corrected the laxity that had come from her companion’s touch. “Well, some day you must do it for me. It doesn’t matter now. Indeed, I don’t think it matters,” she added, “how one looks behind.”
“I should say it mattered more,” said Gertrude. “Then you don’t know who may be observing you. You are not on your guard. You can’t try to look pretty.”
Charlotte received this declaration with extreme gravity. “I don’t think one should ever try to look pretty,” she rejoined, earnestly.
Her companion was silent. Then she said, “Well, perhaps it’s not of much use.”
Charlotte looked at her a little, and then kissed her. “I hope you will be better when we come back.”
“My dear sister, I am very well!” said Gertrude.