On a sudden she raised her head. As she smiled through her tears, Rose was almost her old self. She dried her eyes quickly.
“Sure, Betty, I’d love to go to walk!” she declared happily. “We’ll go as soon as mama gets home to put on my shoes and get my hat, and——”
“We can do that ourselves,” suggested Betty. “I know where your shoes are.” And she fetched them from a clothespress.
Rose shook off one slipper and held out her foot.
“Why don’t you try putting them on?” suggested Betty diplomatically.
“But I shouldn’t know which was which,” Rose faltered rather pitifully.
“Try one, and if that isn’t right, then the other,” Betty advised. “There’s only two chances, you know. It isn’t like you were a centipede.” And she put one shoe into Rose’s hand and the other on the floor. Rose had them on her feet and tied in a twinkling, but the curious sense of satisfaction following the simple act lingered.
“Now we’ll go up to your room and do your hair like you used to wear it.” Betty went on in a manner she strove hard to make matter-of-fact, though secretly she was wildly excited. “I’ll part it for you if you don’t get it straight. Do you know who you look just like now with it so slick and prim? Little Huldy Christiansen!”
Rose laughed out—for the first time since Christmas. She rose. Her face eager, her eyes sparkling, she stood perfectly still holding out her hand, ready to be guided. But Betty had not been thinking and planning for naught all through that week.
“Rose, don’t you remember how when I used to stay all night with you, you would come downstairs in the pitch-dark to get apples and things to eat in bed?” she asked. “I couldn’t come, too, you know, because I was so big the stairs would have creaked.”