"Hurrah!" he cried. "Come down, Miss Vesta, won't you, please? you are the very person I want. I want to show you something."
"Surely!" said Miss Vesta. "I will be with you in a moment, Doctor
Strong; only let me get a head-covering from my room."
When she had left the window, Geoffrey was almost sorry he had called her; she made such a pretty picture standing there, framed in the broad window, the evening light falling softly on her soft face and silver hair. It was so nice of her to wear white in the evening! Why didn't old ladies always wear white? when they were pretty, he added, reflecting that Miss Phoebe in white would be an alarming vision. His mind still on Miss Vesta, he quoted half aloud:
"A still, sweet, placid, moonlight face,
And slightly nonchalant,
Which seems to hold a middle place
Between one's love and aunt."
"I wish you were my aunt!" he exclaimed, abruptly, when Miss Vesta appeared a few minutes later, with a screen of delicate white wool over her head and shoulders.
"Is that what you wished to say to me?" asked Miss Vesta, somewhat bewildered.
"No! oh, no! I was only thinking what a perfect aunt you would make. No, I wanted to show you something; a line out of Browning, illustrated in life; one of my favourite lines. See here, Miss Vesta!"
Miss Vesta looked.
"I see nothing," she began. "Oh, yes, a miller! Is that it, Doctor
Strong? Quite a curious miller. The study of insect life is no doubt—"
"A moth! don't you see?" cried the young doctor. "On the phlox, the white phlox."