Eliza was really a handsome woman, but she never suspected that herself; nor did the people of Shintown. Their taste was inclined toward buxom figures, red cheeks, and black, curly hair. Years before, some one had declared this the type of beauty, and the folk of Shintown had accepted it then, and their grand-children looked upon it as a matter of course even now. So to them Eliza Wells was not beautiful. Her broad, white forehead with the soft, smooth chestnut hair like a band of velvet; her big, clear, gray eyes, serene and calm until she was vexed or excited, when they glowed like embers; her lithe, willowy form, all this meant nothing to them.
“Eliza’s got a big mouth. Did you ever see the like of it,” had been Sam Houston’s comment on her appearance for years, and everyone grinned then and ever afterward whenever he repeated it. It was large, perhaps, but it displayed beautiful teeth, and its curves were exquisite. There was strength and sweetness both in it. Yet, in Shintown, she was not even considered fine looking. It was merely a difference of standards, and somehow all about her was bigger than their measure.
Beth was arriving at the age when she asked questions and had thoughts all her own. One afternoon during the heat of summer, Eliza sat in the living room, taking a few stitches in her weekly mending. The room had been darkened save where she had raised the blinds sufficiently to let the light fall on her work. Her profile was distinct against the white draperies of the inner hangings.
Beth was taking her afternoon nap on the davenport at the end of the room. It was the same big old affair of mahogany on which Sam Houston had placed her when Prince had run away—five years before. It was big and cozy and comfortable. Beth had slept soundly and long. When at last she opened her eyes, she was dazed and just a little dull. She lay looking at Adee’s profile against the window draperies.
What was in her mind, what shadow of a far-off dream had come to her, no one could tell. She watched her foster-mother, and at last said, “You don’t wear your hair like you used to, Adee. Why don’t you? It was prettier, much prettier the other way.”
“You’re dreaming, Beth, child. I always wore it just this way—at least, since I have grown up.”
“No, Adee, I’m sure you didn’t. You used to have fussy little curls about your face, and you used to wear flowers—pink rosebuds and carnations. Don’t you remember, Adee?”
Eliza was startled, but wisely did not contradict the child. “When did I wear flowers in my hair, Little One? Was it in this room, or where? Tell me about it.”
Beth laughed in a lazy sort of way. She was not fully awake. Was she partly dreaming, or did some recollections of her babyhood days intrude themselves? Was a little portion of her brain opening and bringing to light impressions of the hours when she had been with someone else than Adee?
“You’re not one bit of a good ‘rememberer,’” she replied slowly, dreamily. “You used to wear your hair all fussiness and have flowers in it, stuck down over your ear so, and your dresses would be long in the back. Don’t you remember, you’d come in my room and pick me up and hug me and call me Baby—and something else, but I’ve forgot. What else was it that you called me, Adee?”