Uncle William’s eyes followed her good-humoredly.
She turned to him, her face glowing, starlike, out of the lace and mist. “You’re laughing at me,” she said, reproachfully.
“No, I wa’n’t laughing, so to speak,” returned Uncle William. “I was thinkin’ what a sight o’ comfort there is in a bunnit. If men folks wore ’em I reckon they’d take life easier.” He placed his hat firmly on the gray tufts. “That’s one o’ the cur’us things—about ’em.” They were going down the long flight of stairs and he had placed his hand protectingly beneath her arm. “That’s one o’ the cur’us things—how different they be, men and women. I’ve thought about it a good many times, how it must ’a’ tickled the Lord a good deal when he found how different they turned out—made o’ the same kind o’ stuff, so.”
“Don’t you suppose he meant it?” She was smiling under the frilling lace.
“Well, like enough,” returned Uncle William, thoughtfully. “It’s like the rest o’ the world—kind o’ comical and big. Like enough he did plan it that way.”
XVII
The room was filled with the hum of light—faces and flowers and color everywhere. Uncle William walked among them erect, overtopping the crowd, his gaze, for the most part, on the sky-line. Sergia, beside him, seemed a slight figure. Glances followed them as they went, amused or curious or a little admiring. Uncle William, oblivious to the glances and to the crowd that opened before him, and closed silently behind the great figure, beamed upon it all. He was used to making his way through a crowd unhindered. To Sergia the experience was more novel, and she watched the crowd and the pictures and the old man moving serene among them, with amused eyes. Once she called his attention to a celebrated painter in the crowd. Uncle William’s eye rested impartially upon him for a moment and returned to its sky-line. “He looks to me kind o’ pindlin’. One o’ the best, is he?”
“He’s not strong, you mean?”
“Well, not strong, and not much to him—as if the Lord was kind o’ skimped for material. Is that one o’ his picters?”