"Now, don't get excited," said Annie smiling at her. "You'll see such a lot of me during the next few weeks that you need not get into a state just because I've come into the room. I feel that in a certain fashion I am to blame for your accident, so I am going to take your amusements upon my shoulders; and if you just allow me to manage matters, I'll promise that you shan't have a dull time while you are getting well. Have you a headache?"
"No, not a bit."
"That's all right; then you won't mind my talking. Are you fond of pretty things?"
"Yes, very fond."
"Well, I'll sit here, just where you can comfortably see the flowers and me. I expect we'll make a very pretty picture, but you need not say so. I wonder where there's a looking-glass. Oh, yes, in that corner, decently covered with an antimacassar. Well, then, glass, you have got to uncover for my benefit. I wish to see whether I look pretty or not."
Annie danced up to the glass; Nora could watch her each movement.
Her steps were as light as a sylph's, nothing rattled in the sick-room as she moved about it. She took up a comb and re-arranged her dark, curling hair. She placed a rose in her belt, nodded to her own bright image, and then, seating herself before a small table, began to arrange the flowers. "Nora, you can't think what a mass of roses there are in the green-house this morning. Of course the garden is full, too, but I did not wait to go to the garden to get these for you. You can watch me just as long as you fancy and then shut your eyes. These half-open buds are to be placed on a table close to you, where you can smell them. The other flowers we'll put here and there about the room. It's a good thing you were brought into this pretty study, for from where you lie you can fancy you are in a sitting-room, and that you are just having a stretch on the sofa to rest yourself. Fancy goes a long way, doesn't it?"
"I don't know," replied Nora. "I'm afraid I can't fancy that."
Tears filled her eyes as she spoke.
"How cool you look," she said presently, "and—and active and happy."