"Do not be angry," she said, holding out a feeble hand. "I am so afraid of strangers. I felt I should like to see you first—before you saw me. I do not know why—it was just a whim, and, as mother says, when one is ill one may perhaps be forgiven."
"Of course," Nora said gently. To herself she was thinking how beautiful suffering can be. The face lifted to hers—the alabaster complexion, the great dark eyes and fine aristocratic features framed in a bright halo of disordered hair—seemed to her almost unearthly in its spiritualised loveliness. And then there was the expression, so void of all vanity, so eloquent with the appeal: "You are so strong, so beautiful in your youth and strength. Be pitiful to me!"
Governed by some secret impulse, Nora looked up and found that Frau von Arnim was watching her intently. A veil had been lifted from the proud patrician eyes, revealing depths of pain and grief which spoke to Nora much as the younger eyes had spoken, save with the greater poignancy of experience: "You are strong, and life offers you what it will always withhold from my child. Be pitiful!"
And then prejudice, reserve, her own griefs, were swept out of Nora's hot young heart on a wave of sympathy. She still held the thin hand clasped in her own. She clasped it tighter, and her answer to the unspoken appeal came swift and unpremeditated.
"I hope you will like me," she said. "I am so glad I have come."
Hildegarde Arnim's pale face flushed with pleasure.
"I do like you," she said. "I do hope you will be happy with us."
And then, to their mutual surprise, the two girls kissed each other.
CHAPTER VI
A LETTER HOME