"Because two women of some standing and position chanced to notice her. Let's help the good work along, daughter." Then, before Miss Eleanor had time to object, and just as the cobbler's daughter was in front of them, Mrs. Prency stopped, extended her neatly gloved hand, and said, with a pleasant smile,—
"How these girls do grow! You were little Jane only a year or two ago, Miss Kimper."
Never before had Jane Kimper been addressed as "Miss." The appellation sent color flying into her face and brightness into her eyes as she stammered out something about growing being natural.
"You haven't grown fast enough, though, to neglect good looks," continued Mrs. Prency, while Eleanor, endeavoring to act according to her mother's injunctions, drawled,—
"No, indeed!"
Then the cobbler's daughter flushed deeper and looked grateful, almost modest, for girls read girls pretty fairly, and Jane saw that Eleanor was regarding her face with real admiration.
"You girls of the new generation can't imagine how much interest we women who used to be girls have in you," said the judge's wife. "I'm afraid you'd be vain if you knew how much Eleanor and I have looked at you and talked about you."
"I didn't s'pose any lady that was anybody ever thought anything about girls like me," Jane finally managed to say.
"You're greatly mistaken, my dear girl," said the lady. "Nearly every one in this world talks a good deal about every one else whom they know by sight. You really can't imagine how much good it does me to see you looking so well and pretty. Keep right on looking so, won't you? The girls of to-day must be our women a few years hence; that's what I keep impressing upon my daughter day by day,—don't I, dear."
"Indeed you do, mother." Eleanor said it with a look at Jane which was almost a signal for sympathy: the cobbler's daughter was greatly mystified by it.