"If Direxia had nothing better to do, I'd send her packing," said Mrs.
Tree. "Here!"
They touched glasses solemnly.
"Wishing you luck in a wife!" said the old lady.
"Good gracious!" cried Geoffrey.
"It's what you need, young man, and you'd better be looking out for one. There must be some one would have you, and any wife is better than none."
She looked up, though not at Geoffrey, and a twinkle came into her eyes. "Do you call little Vesta pretty, now?" she asked.
"Not pretty," said Geoffrey; "that is not the word. I—"
"Then you'd better not call her anything," said Mrs. Tree, "for she's in the door behind ye."
Geoffrey started violently, and turned around. Vesta was standing framed in the dark doorway. The clear whiteness of her beauty had never seemed more wonderful. The faint rose in her cheeks only made the white more radiant; her eyes were no longer agate-like, but soft and full of light; only her smile remained the same, shadowy, elusive, a smile in a dream.
When the young doctor remembered his manners and rose to his feet—after all, it was only a moment or two—he saw that Miss Vesta was standing behind her niece, a little gray figure melting into the gloom of the twilight hall. The two now entered the room together.