“Aren’t they? I’d love to put lavender and rosemary in the corners. Do you—like those perfumes?”
“Well, yes, as perfumes. But I’m so used to the odor of freshly cut trees I’m afraid my finer taste is disappearing,” said the other quietly.
Into the drawer Nora was placing such an outlay of finery as any young bride might have boasted of. Selecting from catalogues was only too evident in the lacy garments, with little ribbons, and tiny rose buds; pretty in themselves but absurd on the undergarments of a growing child. Then, there was an ivory set, mirror, comb, brush, etc. As the surprised Teddy glimpsed the display over a khaki covered shoulder she had difficulty in choking back a laugh.
“Naomie would be as silly as that,” she pondered, silently, reflecting that the same sort of whims in dress and finery had been a real part of Naomie Blair’s young girlhood.
Nora was placing her pretty things on the big dresser, with skilled little fingers, and that the fancy, private, exclusive school had helped to make silly traits even more pronounced in little Nora, was too evident.
Wisely, however, Mrs. Ted said not a word in opposition. Things must move slowly, she realized, if the quaint little dreamer was not to be too rudely shocked out of her fancies.
It was all very exciting even to the placid, well balanced young woman. To have the daughter of her girlhood friend come into her very arms, like a little bird battered in the storm of life’s uncertainties, with tired wings falling against the bright window pane of love; then to see the dreams unfolded with the Jims, Elizabeths, ghosts and attic fancies, ready to reel off like an actual moving-picture—it was all very surprising, not to say astonishing, for the sensible, modern Mantons.
But could this same bright-eyed lady have looked into the summer ahead, and forseen the new fields of fancies that Nora was about to explore, she might have been still more amazed. Playing mother to a butterfly is not often a very satisfactory experience, but there was Nora, and if ever a child needed a mother this little “whimsy” did.
“To think of calling her mother Nannie,” reflected Mrs. Manton, “and if only I could have called such a child ‘daughter.’”
Jerry was back from his enforced trip to the lumberland, and his whistle trickled in the window on a flood of sunshine.