"You are not so very large now, are you?" ventured Rosanna.
"No, I am not," said Miss Hooker in what was for her quite a cross tone. "Oh, Rosanna, how I would love to be tall! There is a girl round the corner on Fourth Street, and she is about six feet tall, and I just envy her so! Why, what are you laughing at?"
"Oh, you please must excuse me!" begged Rosanna, "but when Minnie told us the young lady was coming to see me about the Girl Scouts, Uncle Robert and I both made up our mind that you were that tall young lady. And Uncle Robert said he was sure to be fearfully afraid of you. And instead of that, you are you, just as sweet and little! Uncle Robert needn't be afraid a bit, need he?"
"I am not at all sure," said Miss Marjorie Hooker. "Perhaps he will have to be terribly afraid of me."
CHAPTER XXI
It was bedtime one night, and after Rosanna had been tucked in her grandmother came up. She had been doing this ever since Rosanna came home and the little girl had learned to long for the little talks they had together. But this night Mrs. Horton sat down in the big chair, and told Rosanna to come into her arms. Cuddled there on her grandmother's lap, Rosanna rested while they had a talk that neither of them ever forgot. For the first time Rosanna learned all about the little sister, and Mrs. Horton in her turn came to know something of the thoughts and loneliness and longings that go on in a little girl's mind. Rosanna told her grandmother all about it, and if Mrs. Horton hugged her so tight that it almost hurt and cried over her short hair, Rosanna felt all the happier for it.
And Mrs. Horton forgot that she was a proud and haughty lady (indeed she was really never that again) and told Rosanna how sorry she was that she had been unloving because she had really never meant her cold manner. She made Rosanna understand that she had always loved her but never, never so deeply or so tenderly as now. And Rosanna begged her forgiveness for running away, and for cutting off her hair. So by-and-by they commenced to talk of happier things, feeling very near and dear to each other the while.
It was such a wonderful talk that Rosanna felt that never again would she be unhappy.