“My dear child,” she said, “we are so happy to have you here. Sit down--not there, dear; that’s a frock I’ve had sent up on approval, and one doesn’t like to crush them more than so much. . . . I was so sorry I couldn’t meet you last night, but I was persuaded to stay down-town and go to see something light with a group of friends. . . . So seldom have an evening free. . . . Not that blouse, Jane! . . . Now let me see you, Natalie. Stand up.”
I did so, and she said, “Hum----” in a lingering, speculative way. I didn’t feel very comfortable.
“Well, we must go shopping,” she said with a sigh. “Jane, go ask Miss Evelyn to be kind enough to come here a moment----”
Jane vanished, and my aunt went on looking me over.
“Some gray mixture for your day frocks, I think,” she said at length. “With your gray eyes--yes, gray. And we’ll look at something soft in rose and in pink for evening. . . . Lovely hair you have, dear. Like your mother’s. But it looks more like New Orleans than Virginia. I wonder whether there was Creole blood in your mother’s mother’s family?”
I said I didn’t know, and then Evelyn came in. She spoke to me pleasantly, although carelessly, and then to her mother. The way she spoke to her was not pleasant. “What is it?” she almost whined. “I was right in the middle of notes, mother!”
“I wanted you to telephone Mrs. Lethridge-Guth; tell her I’m indisposed--can’t play this morning. . . . This child will have to have some clothes. . . .”
Evelyn looked at me.
“She most certainly will!” she admitted. “I should think some of that braid could come off before you go out----”
Aunt Penelope nodded, got a scissors, and I slipped from my frock. Then I sat down and began to rip off the braid which I had so painfully attached.