"My dear child," said Helen, with mock gravity, "I am older than you are—ever so much older."
The lustrous eyes closed, and for a moment the long silken lashes rested against the pale cheek. Then the eyes opened, and gazed at Helen appealingly.
"Oh, impossible! How could that be? I was sixteen in 1862."
"Then," said Helen, "you are twenty-seven, and I am twenty-five."
"I knew it—I felt it!" exclaimed Hallie, with pensive animation.
Helen was amused and somewhat interested. She admired the peculiar beauty of Hallie; but the efforts of the latter to repress her feelings, to reach, as it were, the results of self-effacement, were not at all pleasing to the Boston girl.
Mrs. Garwood and Miss Tewksbury found themselves on good terms at once. A course of novel reading, seasoned with reflection, had led Miss Tewksbury to believe that Southern ladies of the first families possessed in a large degree the Oriental faculty of laziness. She had pictured them in her mind as languid creatures, with a retinue of servants to carry their smelling-salts, and to stir the tropical air with palm-leaf fans. Miss Tewksbury was pleased rather than disappointed to find that Mrs. Garwood did not realize her idea of a Southern woman. The large, lumbering carriage was something, and the antiquated driver threatened to lead the mind in a somewhat romantic direction; but both were shabby enough to be regarded as relics and reminders rather than as active possibilities.
Mrs. Garwood was bright and cordial, and the air of refinement about her was pronounced and unmistakable. Miss Tewksbury told her that Dr. Buxton had recommended Azalia as a sanitarium.
"Ephraim Buxton!" exclaimed Mrs. Garwood. "Why, you don't tell me that Ephraim Buxton is practising medicine in Boston? And do you really know him? Why, Ephraim Buxton was my first sweetheart!"
Mrs. Garwood's laugh was pleasant to hear, and her blushes were worth looking at as she referred to Dr. Buxton. Miss Tewksbury laughed sympathetically but primly.